Trouble Me 2: The Once-ler Sessions
by MissNemisisFace
Summary: It's like the first one: a series of talk-therapy sessions between The Once-ler and Dr. Avery Frost. Rated for language and descriptions of violence. Later chapters will be his family members' sessions (despite that being a conflict of interest). Sorry about the format.
1. Chapter 1

A young man in a strange, green tuxedo with long, green gloves plinks away with a 3DS. From the music, it seems to be a "Pokemon" game. The cry of a Marowak is audible. Dr. Avery Frost, an elderly man with curly, snow-white hair and dark skin sits across from the tall, thin, green-clad younger man.  
"No, damnit. Don't miss this time! "Bonemerang" is your fuckin' signature, Aisa! Stupid Sand Attack..."  
"Once-ler, please play video games on your own time." He pushes a few more buttons and, a moment or two later, closes the handheld.  
"Yeah, sure, fine. Whatever."  
"It's just you came here for a reason, and I'm pretty sure playing Pikachus isn't that reason." Once-ler sniggers.  
"Pokemon, Avery. They aren't all called Pikachu." He shakes his head. "Honestly, you old farts and that, I swear..." Avery's eyes are half-lidded, a bemused expression on his face.  
"You gonna actually talk to me, or what?"  
"Yeah, I guess."  
"So, what seems to be the problem?"  
"There's just something that's been bothering me; eating away at me. I know it shouldn't bother me, but it does."  
"And what would that be?"  
"July 12, 1990. That was the day I was born...something else happened that day, too. You remember what my dad did for a living, right? Worked for the FBI. Caught murderers. Anyway, a few years before I was born, he caught that one ass-hole. You know? "The Artist"? The guy who made sculptures from people's limbs and painted with their blood and guts and stuff? Caught him. 25 victims. The last victim: dad caught him doing his "work" on the body. It was part of that shit-bird's "magnum opus"-bound a bunch of dead folks together-five of them, but he was gunning for more. Cut and sew their damned faces to make "expressions", and pinned them together with these big-ass spikes; like the kind for rail-road ties. Like those. Wove their rib-cages together somehow. Had their arms up, screwed to one another by the wrist-bones. It was hideous. Nightmare shit."  
"Yes, I remember."  
"I'm not saying that he didn't deserve to die; he so totally fucking did-I mean, who the hell does that? He was executed the day I was born-didn't find that out until a year or so ago, but that ass-hole died the same day I was born. As I was coming into the world, he was bound down, dying-lethal injection. Well, I was born hours later, since they tend to do that at midnight, but still. It's a weird feeling. That son of a bitch was the second serial killer my dad caught-caught him in 1986."  
"Why does it bother you? I mean, it is a strange coincidence, but it's nothing more than that."  
"I don't really know, Dr. Frost. It just bothers me a bit. I try not to think about it...but what harm is it going to do? I mean, my birthday is always fucked-I get depressed as hell-but that's another drop in the ol' shit-storm."  
"Why do you get depressed on your birthday?"  
"Why do I get depressed on Christmas? Why do I get depressed on Father's Day? Why do I get depressed on the anniversary of his death? It's a glaring fucking reminder that he's gone. I mean, he died two weeks before my fourth birthday." He takes his sunglasses off and sits them by his top-hat, sprawling his long limbs over the black leather couch-careful to not kick over the vase on the adjoining table. "It just sucks. I lost him so early."  
"Would you like to talk about it?"  
"He was a hero. Three serial killers down, because of him. In 1983, he caught that one ass-clown who thought he was a wizard or some bullshit; trying to do some sort of magic spell with the dead people. Called him "The Necromancer". He got put in the loony bin instead of killed like he should have been. When I was still just two years old, he brought down the most prominent serial killer this country has ever seen: 126 known victims. All children, for fuck's sake. All little boys; two to six years old. She'd torture 'em, carving this line from the Bible into their chests. I think she meant it as a taunt: "Canst thou draw out the Leviathan with a hook? Or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down?" I don't really get it, but it's how she got her nick-name: "The Leviathan". That, and she drown every single one of them." Avery chews on the end of his pen and studies the man he'd known for over twenty years-since he was just a small boy. "Why would someone do something like that? Murder children?"  
"She was a psychopath. They don't think the way that people like us think. She saw those children as tools; saw what she was doing as a big puzzle. She was egotistical, thought no one would catch her-that no one was smart enough to figure her out."  
"Well, my dad caught her. Stopped her in 1992. She would have kept going; kept killing. She even openly admitted to that. She shocked the whole country-female serial killers are rare. She was a wealthy, well-educated, well-dressed, highly social woman. She sat there in that court room, smirking the entire time. She didn't even give a shit that she was caught and was likely going to be sentenced to death. She confessed right there...the way she talked about the murders," he shudders. "She talked about it like she was talking about going grocery shopping or something; so causal, so relaxed. She even laughed and said: "You'll never find them all." Still smug as a motherfuck, too. She started in 1979, when she was 19. Took the little boy right off the street."  
"Yes, I remember it all too well. One of the more disturbing cases I've ever read."  
"Well, she was convicted, right? Whole country, pissed as hell-screaming for blood. They got it; she got death. Everyone was touting my dad as a hero. He'd lured the monster out of the closet, and he struck it down...then he started getting sick." He sighs, lying on his back with his gloved arms behind his head. "I was too little, I didn't understand what was happening. He was always in the hospital, and I was always a little afraid. Grandma and Grandpa came down from Massachusetts; first time I'd ever seen them...they could only stay for a month or so, though. Over the next two years, my family started to unravel. Mom started drinking. Hard. Drunk as a monkey's ass all the time. When he started staying in the hospital-when he got too sick to stay at home, she stopped taking care of my brothers and me. We went hungry a lot, and mom's grip on sanity started slipping away...Avery, can I tell you something?"  
"You know you can tell me anything. It's what I'm here for."  
"It's just...I've never told a soul about this. Scared me so much-I was three. It was during the day. Brett and Chet were at school, and I was home alone with mom. I was just so fucking hungry. I hadn't eaten anything other than a packet of cheese-crackers in the past two days. I went into the dining room; where mom had set up shop-and by set up shop, I mean decided to sit in there and drink all damn day. Drink and smoke while daytime TV chattered mindlessly in the living room." His voice falters a bit, and he shuts his eyes-trying to hold back tears. "I was sitting in there...in dirty clothes since she wouldn't do laundry, and I hadn't bathed in about a week-I was too little to work the tub downstairs without scalding the shit out of myself and mom, of course, was too busy drinking herself into a stupor to help me out. Brett and Chet tried to help, but there's only so much a couple of six year olds can do. They couldn't cook-dad always told us to leave the stove alone so we wouldn't hurt ourselves. Hell, they were having to nab food from other kids since mom wouldn't give 'em lunch money and sure as fuck wasn't sober enough to pack a lunch. They brought me what they could: an apple here, a snack-cake there. They learned to not try to bring me one of those little cartons of milk after the first time. It was hot and spoiled by the time they got home. We were all little dumb-ass kids, so I drank it anyway...and puked my guts up. Anyway, that aside, I thank them. They are ass-bags sometimes, but they were pretty good older brothers to me."  
"You're getting off track, Once-ler."  
"Sorry, Dr. Frost. Thanks for that; I start down that rabbit hole, and we're gonna be here all day." He shakes himself out of it. "Anyway, she was already good and shit-faced. I got up and went into her own personal bar to ask if she would make me a grilled cheese. I was just so hungry-it hurt." He sighs. "What she did...fuck. She had this revolver, right? An S&W .38 dad bought when Leviathan was still out there-he was afraid for us while he wasn't there. She was sitting there, holding it in her hand. There were so many empty bottles of whisky and empty cigarette packs in there. Her eyes were blood-shot, and she had this twisted, shit-eating grin on her face. She held it to her head and said "Wanna see something, Oncie?" She...she pulled the trigger. Click! She didn't blow her brains out in front of a 3-year-old me, but it was still unnerving. She just dropped the gun and started laughing. I left the room, terrified. I never knew if the gun was loaded at all, but I was scared. After she passed out, while Maury was on-I couldn't tell time and gauged it by what shit-show was on TV-I went in there and took the gun, really quiet, so she wouldn't wake up and-" he catches himself. "I took it outside and buried it in the yard." Avery has noticed his pause and tilts his head to the side.  
"So she wouldn't wake up and what?"  
"So she wouldn't kick my ass, Dr. Frost." He sits up, looking at the dark marble floor under him. "She started beating the shit out of my brothers and I after dad started staying in the hospital and her drinking got really out of hand. She was always careful to not hit us in the face, or to break bones, but she kicked our asses when she'd get blind drunk and pissed-off." He trembles and wipes his eyes. "I never understood it. She'd beat the hell out of me, and I hadn't done anything wrong-she'd just think I was being too noisy or something, and hit me until I was quiet. She beat the three of us the same, so I know what she did had to hurt just as much for Brett and Chet as it did for me...but they often ended up with more licks than me because they wouldn't quit while they were ahead. She would have me take my shirt off and get down on my hands and knees with my back arched up a little. It had to be arched. She'd take a wet leather belt and beat me across the back with it, sometimes for a set amount of licks, sometimes until she got bored. My back would bleed almost every time, and it hurt so much. Each time I'd scream, she'd add ten more licks. Sometimes, I couldn't sleep for it, and my shirt would bother it. My back still has scars from it." He looks up, quickly snatching his sunglasses and putting them on, hiding his eyes. "I know it's probably in my head, but it felt like she kicked my ass more often than my brothers. Probably did; I had to stay home with her while they went to school. All day. Hungry, alone, and scared in that house all day, only the idiot-box to keep me company. Sure, I was watching TV shows I probably shouldn't have been-but it was someone talking to me; made me feel less alone."  
"But I know your aunt, uncle, and cousins lived with you. Why weren't they there?"  
"They didn't move in until way after dad died. Mom is not the sort to work. Ever. She wouldn't do jack shit-especially after he died. No cooking or cleaning, no being a mom; just sitting on her ass, drinking, smoking, and watching talk shows all day long. My uncle noticed how thin and sickly my brothers and I were one day, and moved him, Aunt Grizelda, Cousin Marietta, and Cousin Clementine from Idabena to take care of us-made her stop beating us. You see, my grandaddy was a son of a bitch. Like, a cartoonishly evil bastard. Got what he deserved; killed in prison. He used to beat the ever-loving hell out of my uncle every single day for ten years. Broken bones, bruises, blood. Anyway, my uncle did eventually catch her when I was seven. I don't want to talk about that shit today; why she stopped. I'll do that when I'm damn good and ready. She got counciling, though that's bullshit, and came home. She never hit us again, but she was still a colossal bitch. I honestly don't know why I bother sometimes. Nothing's ever good enough for her."  
"You lost your father, and you were looking for love and acceptance from the only parent you had left: your mother." Once-ler sighs and shakes his head.  
"I just felt so alone as a kid. At least when I was six, I got out of there-started going to that private school. I only got in there because I'm white. There were literally no white children from America in that school at all. I don't mean any offense, but they tried too hard to have diversity and look "colour-blind" and didn't notice that they didn't accept any American white kids since 1970. They were busted in 1995, and the following school-year, 1996-when I started 1st Grade-they just did a mad-grab for any white kid that met the basic requirements for admission to keep people from bitching about discriminating against white children." He sits back, slightly more relaxed than he was a moment ago. "Anyway, I started living there most of the time. I mean, I could go home on the weekends, but mom often didn't want to be bothered with driving up and getting me from school so I could come home. Instead, I stayed there with the foreign and out-of-state kids. It wasn't all bad-I managed to make a lot of friends. I ended up on the school's basketball team and was pretty popular, actually. I mean, I wasn't a dick, but I was popular."  
"Go on."  
"I had no trouble making friends; had plenty. There were some that I was closer to, but I didn't form a clique or anything. I'd be friends with anyone. Mostly, I was happy to be away from home; away from all the abuse and torment. I mean, I worried about Brett and Chet while I was at school, and I did feel guilty a lot."  
"Oh? Why did you feel guilty?"  
"I was safe and they weren't. I think I was afraid that, without me there, they had to split up the abuse mom'd give to me between them. I know that sounds stupid, but it's how I felt."  
"You do know that what your mother did to you and your older brothers was not your or their fault, right?"  
"Yeah; still didn't change anything. I mean, I knew she didn't have, like, a pie-chart or something of the "abuse-distribution". She wasn't like "Hmm...I normally break it into thirds, but with Oncie gone, I'm going to have to split his third in half and distribute it to Brett and Chet...". That's madness. No one does that, but when you're a kid, your sense of logic is a little off." He glances at the clock. "Hour's up. This has been pretty good; helped me some. I'll see you next week, Avery."


	2. Chapter 2

"I think I'm ready to talk about my father's death, now. I think I'm finally ready to talk about it." Dr. Frost looks up, intrigued.  
"Oh?"  
"Yeah. I mean, I know that's the reason we met when I was a little kid; but I understand things now that I couldn't then." He lets out a breath. "I remember when he started to...when it started to be obvious that he wasn't going to survive. The chemo wasn't helping for shit: he was just getting weaker and weaker. His hair fell out, which scared the hell out of me. I couldn't understand how medicine that was supposed to make him better was making him look like that; like a damn ghoul. Sunken cheeks and eyes, hair all fallen out, skin gone pale...bony. He tried to stay cheerful. He tried to act like nothing was wrong, like he was going to get better. I wanted to believe him; made myself believe him. He passed early in the morning. We were woken up. I was still in a daze when we got there. I never got to tell my father goodbye. Everything was confusing after that; all the adults were running around, making funeral preparations and shit like that. The five of us were left to fend for ourselves. Cousin Marietta tried to help me-Clementine was too little to do much of anything. I was on my own a lot-my brothers didn't leave me or anything, I just spaced myself out. With everything going on, I just wanted to be alone, wanted to be away from all the madness. I spent a lot of time outside, on the swing-set out back. She'd sit on the swing next to mine and try to talk to me. I didn't say much. It didn't help that she listened to the most depressing music any four year old ever listened to. Tom fucking Waits. Gee-whiz, Mari. Nice mood music. Her room was across from mine, so I could hear it well." He shakes his head. "I mean, I was close to Mari-she was just two months older than me, but we had one big-ass difference; and I don't mean that it was me being a boy and her being a girl. She was straight-up spooky. She'd wander through the house like a damn ghost. She was quiet as hell, and could sidle up to you without you knowing it. When she'd make me-or anyone else, for that matter-jump out of my damn skin, she'd crack this little smile. She liked to spook people. She didn't sleep well and would wander the house at night. Like I said, it was like she was a ghost." He chuckles. "It used to scare the living hell out of me. I'd be lying in bed and hear someone walking around out in the hall. You know I lived in an old farm house, so the floor-boards creaked, making it 2spooky4me." As he says "too", he holds up two fingers, then quickly shifts to four at the word "for". "Seriously, though. I thought there was a ghost in the hall. Made me scared to leave my room at night to take a piss-I was certain that the ghost in the hall would drag me to hell and feed me to its demons. When I was 12, I found out that it was Marietta walking around."  
"How did you find out it was her?"  
"I couldn't hold it. I planned to just open the door and run as fast as I could to the bathroom, lock the door, do what I had to do, then run back. Didn't have to, though. I saw her. She was standing by the window in the hall up there, looking out at all the dark. I was like: "Jesus H. Christ, Mari-it's been you this whole time? I've been scared of you all these years?" and she just smiled that creepy-as-all-hell smile of hers and walked back to her bedroom. She's a professional psychic, now." He sighs and lies back down. "The creepiest thing was the basement, because of course. I hated that damn basement." His cheer mood fades, and a look of uneasiness settles across his features. "Doc, mom used to lock me down there as punishment. In addition to beating us, she'd use fear as a punishment. We all three hated that basement, and she knew it. For Brett, it was the dark; for Chet, it was the feeling of being trapped. For me, it was all the rats. Fuckin' hate rats. Mean-ass little fuckers. They eat people alive, you know that, Avery?"  
"I know what you're talking about, and it's passed-out hobos they eat. They're too drunk to wake up and the rats chew their faces off. Sure, it's scary, but they don't swarm people and gobble them up."  
"Still, hate those things." he shudders. "Nasty, too. Disease carrying vermin. I often wondered why they didn't go into other parts of the house-they were literally only in the basement. It's like they wanted to add to the ambient horror of that hell-hole. No windows in it, so it was always dark as a tomb in there. There was this bare bulb with a pull-string in the middle of the room, but that was just it: it was in the middle of the room. You had to run through the dark to it and turn it on. It had dirt floors, which is just wonderful. Made me feel like I was in a damn catacomb-like there were maybe hundreds of dead people buried right under my feet. Sometimes, I have nightmares where I'm back in there-chained to the damn floor by my wrists, just like when I was a boy."  
"Tell me more about these nightmares."  
"It's dark-pitch black in there. I can hear squeaking all around me, but I can't see anything. I struggle against the chains, but the harder I pull, the tighter they get around my wrists. They come out of the darkness around me and they...start eating me alive. My legs, first; gnawing on flesh. I scream, but no one comes to help me." He's begun to tremble, ever so slightly. "I fall to my side, and more of them converge on me...they bite me everywhere, Avery. I feel every bit of it. They tear my body open and crawl inside me, eating my organs-eating me from the inside out. They gnaw my bones, chewing my hands off at the wrists. I know I should be dead by then-shock, probably-but I'm not. I lie there while they eat me. I feel one break through my skull...eat my brains. They eat every part of me, only leaving a shit-load of blood. I feel all of it, even after my body is mostly gone, until there is nothing left of me. I always wake up so afraid and so sore from that nightmare."  
"When did these nightmares start?"  
"I think they started when I was around four or five. All I know is that I've been having them a long time. I'm always the age I really am in the nightmare-like, I'm not a little boy again in the nightmares."  
"When was the last time you had that nightmare?"  
"A couple nights ago. You know how sometimes you have a nightmare so bad that you just lie there? Like, you're not sure if it's over or not, and you're too afraid to move. I laid there like that until morning, huddled under my blankets."  
"I really think that we should explore this nightmare and your fear of rats, when you're ready."  
"Yeah, maybe after a while. I'm not really ready for that today." He eases back. "The rats weren't the only thing that bothered me about that basement. It was old, and there was this huge furnace in there. Warmed the house okay-except the first-floor bathroom. It was always bitch-ass cold in there. But yeah, it was one of those big furnaces. Burned coal in it, so it smelled like shit in there. Burned my nose when it was lit, and when it was, there was this orange glow from the vent in the door. Looked like eyes, at least to child-me. Didn't help that it was hot as hell in there when it was lit, so I had that fun when I was locked in there. There was a lot of shit that was scary in that house."  
"Tell me about them."  
"When I was about eight, mom got a new TV for the living room, and we got the old one upstairs for us to watch. Eventually, and I don't know why, it got to the point where you couldn't turn it off. It'd just sit there all night, playing whatever was on. I don't know why no one figured to just unplug the damn thing. It had rabbit-ears, and we could only pick up two channels, which sucked. I used to sit up with Mari and watch it. Clementine never really hanged out with us, that much-two years younger than me. Anyway, we got this channel that only seemed to play soap operas and the news, so we didn't bother with that one. The other one wasn't all that much better. It was public access, so right there, you know it's good." He leans back on the couch, crossing his legs at the ankle. "Some of the strangest shit I've ever seen. My brothers got pretty bored with the TV when they realized that that was all it would pick up upstairs, but me and Mari would watch that public access channel to see the shitty TV shows that'd come on there. All of them were painfully low-budget. Like, a four-dollar budget. Including the camera. One night, Marietta and I decided we were going to stay up all night and see what came on. There was some sort of parenting show that came on around midnight, starring the most miserable-looking people I've ever seen. Like, they looked like they wished they were dead." He chuckles-but there is a slight hint of unease barely masked within. "It was these guys and their babies in those things you wear on your chest to carry babies around. They were just walking in circles while this horrible key-boards song droned on in the background. There was someone talking, but it was really hard to hear what they were saying, about half the time. The beeping drowned them out. It was creepy, but a little funny-in some weird way; they sort of looked like they had been down there for days on end-held captive by the demented weirdo that was giving the "tips". Looked like they were in a basement that someone tried to spruce up with some pillows and a few sheets draped around on the walls. It lasted about a half hour, and that was all that happened on that show-miserable dudes with their babies walking around in a circle while the shittiest music you'll ever hear drones on and someone rattles some sort of parenting tips. After it went off, this children's show-of all things-came on. At least, I think it was for kids. Could have been a tongue-in-cheek comedy for adults, but it was just so crappy. It had puppets, if you could call them that. They looked like they were made of carpet remnants with those plastic googly-eyes hot-glued on. The puppeteers weren't very good, either. I remember there being a lot of long pauses-like they either forgot what they were supposed to say there, or they were pulling it out of their asses while they were going and didn't know what to say; had to think about it for a minute. The background had about the same amount of effort put into it as everything else on the show-it was just a red and white checkered table-cloth." Avery sits, slightly amused and happy to see Once-ler happy. His eyes were wide, and his speech was becoming increasingly rapid. "The main character seemed to be this wonderful piece of purple shag with the worst British accent I've ever heard. Think it was called "Fred" or something like that. Could have been "Frank". It's been a while. He was always harassed by this bright orange carpet named "Cliff". That was the conflict, right there. Cliff bothering Frank. He'd be on his ass over something, then Frank'd try desperately to fix whatever it was. It was an hour long-insanity, right there-and Frank had about 20 problems. They didn't really mesh into a cohesive plot and it was confusing at times. Those were really the only shows worth noting-after it was this guy with an audible stutter talking about cars for a half hour. They were all "Hot-wheels" cars, though-like he couldn't find pictures of the cars he was prattling about. There was this yoga guy after that. We fell asleep watching that. He was just sort of mumbling the entire time, and it was too boring to keep us awake. Public access was great-a great source for shitty, half-assed shows. Miss public access." He sits up straight, resting his hands on his knees. "What woke us up was the sound of static. Either the TV stopped working right, or that channel stopped broadcasting. TV static has always bothered me."  
"Do you know why it bothered you?"  
"No, not really. It just always bothered me. I'd make a point of not looking at it-run by the TV while it was doing that. I felt like if I looked at the TV static too long, something would "get me"." Avery chews on his pen and Once-ler eases back. "I'm dodging what I came here to talk about, and I know it."  
"That's okay. If you don't feel up to talking about it, you don't have to."  
"No, no. I feel like it, and I know I should or it's just going to keep bothering me." He sighs loudly. "So, when my dad died. I should probably talk about how it was right before he died, right? Set up a bit of a background, there. He was in the hospital so often before that. I remember seeing him throw up blood at one point. Scared the hell out of me. Not long after that, he started staying at the hospital. They told me it was his medicine that made him puke blood. His "medicine" confused me a lot as a kid. Medicine is supposed to make people better, but he just seemed to be getting worse the longer he was on it. He got pale, sometimes he had what looked like burns on his skin, he wasn't eating well-couldn't keep it down...then, his hair fell out. He got more and more gaunt and pale, but even with that, he was still my dad, and I still loved him a lot. I'd go visit him as often as anyone would take me. He'd let me crawl up there on the hospital bed with him, and he'd have me tell him all about what I was doing; what was going on. I was excited to tell him, but I always got depressed after a while, telling him that I wished he'd come home soon. He'd hug me and tell me he was trying his best to get better, and the doctors were helping him, too. I could feel all his ribs when he'd hug me, and it bothered me." He lies down, his tone becoming sad. "Towards the end, there were a lot of "near-misses"-a lot of times he'd about die. They always managed to revive him, but still. I think that's when I knew he wasn't going to survive, but I still didn't want to admit it-not even to myself. I thought if I didn't think it, it wouldn't happen. I just kept telling myself that he would get better. I told myself doctors knew what they were doing and that it was their job to "make people better". When I saw him have to be revived, I couldn't lie to myself any longer. They actually shock people before they flat line. Most people don't know that. I do. His ribs broke from it. When they were done, he just lay there, barely breathing. At least it was beeping at a steady pace again. We had to go home after that. Then, on that horrible day in 1994, there was nothing they could do; couldn't jolt him back to life. When we got there...fuck me. They didn't do anything to prepare him. They knew small children would be there, and they didn't do anything to make it less horrifying. He lay on his back, his mouth was open...so were his eyes. They were empty and blank, but they were still wide open. The blankets were a little roughed-up, like he'd struggled, fought death. He had an arm out of the bed, and the fingers were coiled up weird. Why didn't they do something to fix him up before we got there? Why did they just let him lay there like that?" He covers his eyes and his breath hitches. After a few pained tears, he starts talking again. "Grandma and Grandpa came down from Boston again. I heard them talking to each other. They were trying to decide if they should take dad back with them to be buried, or leave him down here. They left him down here, and he was buried in the small cemetery in my hometown. It couldn't have been easy for them; he was their son, but they left him down here for his sons."  
"It seems like something your father would have wanted; from what I know about him."  
"For a long time, I couldn't enjoy anything. I didn't want to play, watch TV, go outside, listen to music-nothing. I only ate because they made me. We were all fucked up from that. You know how I got-why they sent me to you. Brett's crazy-ass Nyctophobia came back. He had to sleep with the light on-a night-light just wouldn't cut it. Chet started getting in trouble a lot in school-fights, wouldn't do his school work, shit like that. It never really did get better, we just learned how to move on." He sits back up. "I wonder a lot; I wonder what would have been different if he didn't die. I still miss him so much, Dr. Frost...the worst part is, he's starting to fade away."  
"How so?"  
"I can barely remember his voice beyond that accent, and his face...I can't remember clearly what he looked like." His hands ball into fists, his shoulders trembling. "I'm forgetting my own damn daddy. What the fuck sort of son am I that I'm forgetting my own father?"  
"You were just so young when he passed away, Once-ler. It's only natural that you would forget things about him."  
"I don't want to, though. I don't want to ever forget my dad."


	3. Chapter 3

"I went back to Mt. Burgess the other day."  
"Oh? What for?" He smirks.  
"I donated a bunch of money to them-kept my name off it. Don't want my family knowing; they might get pissed that I donated a little over 2 million dollars to my old school...and gave my favourite teachers each a check for $10,000 dollars."  
"Well, that is very generous of you."  
"It wasn't all great, though."  
"How so?" He sighs and leans back, shaking his head slightly.  
"I dressed normal-not like this; in my old clothes. I didn't want people recognizing me and hounding my ass. Different Headmaster; but that was to be expected. Headmaster Maxwell was already as old as dirt when I was a kid. New guy's Headmaster Collins. He's a nice guy, recognized my name, so I asked him to keep quiet that I was there. Plus, it's summer. Most of the kids are home for Summer Holiday-probably only 10-12 kids in there, if it's like it was when I went there." Seeing that, once again, Once-ler was getting side-tracked, Dr. Frost interjects:  
"What happened?"  
"Well, I give him that check, right? He takes it because, no shit. I mean, someone hands you a big-ass check like that, you're gonna take it." A cheer, excited smile spreads across his face, his eyes lighting up. "He let me have a walk around the building. A lot of the old shit is still there, and I liked seeing it again. The Great-hall-the cafeteria; just what it was called. Damn building used to be a French chateau. I had to see my old dorm room. I mean, that place was my home for 12 years, most of the time. It was more home than my real home, to tell the truth. On the East Wing-where the boy's dormitories were-Dorm Room Number 134. Some other kid's name is on the door now, but duh to that. They list last name first with a comma separating the two on those little brass plaques they stick into this slidy-thing in the door. Valentine, John is what it says, now. I ask the Headmaster if I can go in, and he lets me. I just wanted to see it; I wasn't going to fuck with any of the kid's shit. It was all still in there: the basic stuff-you had to furnish other stuff yourself, but the bed, desk, and wardrobe were still in there. It looked a lot more gloomy than I remember it, but that's no windows for you. I laid down on the bed, right? I see something on the frame. It's something I carved in there when I was 12: "1-ler". Don't know why I did that, just did. I don't know why, but I like that it's my old bed-frame, like, they didn't change it out."  
"Nostalgia, likely. It reminded you of being that child again, and the fact that it is your old bedframe: it feels like you left part of yourself in there-your mark." Dr. Frost relaxes back in his chair. "What happened after that? Did you visit anywhere else?"  
"Yeah-of course. The courtyard, the balcony they had to close off after that kid jumped off it and killed himself when I was in 10th grade." His tone does not change at the mention of a class mate's suicide. "I wanted to go look at the class-rooms, after that. That's when I see Professor Alvarez. He's so old, now, but he's still the Professor Alvarez I remember."  
"Was he happy to see you?"  
"Yeah. He told me to just call him Steven, now, but I can't. I called him Professor Alvarez for twelve years. He asks how I've been and stuff, I tell him and ask how he is, too. Then, I gave him the check. I thought he was going to shit a brick. He tried to tell me he couldn't take it, but I insisted. I told him that he was like a father to me, and I wanted him to have it. He thanked me and told me again that I didn't have to give him any money. Then, I asked him if Professor Ogawa was in. We went and looked for him together. He was still in the art room, like always. Like with Professor Alvarez, Professor Ogawa told me to just call him Ken, and just like with Professor Alvarez, I couldn't. We talked for a while, all three of us; laughing, remembering things; stuff like that. It was more like we were three men than two teachers and a student. Then I give Professor Ogawa his check. He tried to argue with me on it, but Professor Alvarez told him: "You can't argue with him on this, Ken. Take the check." and he took the check." A sad look crosses his face, the once-bright smile fading away as he takes out a piece of paper and holds it up.  
"What's wrong? Are you okay?"  
"I asked them about Coach Bobrov...Doctor, they told me Coach Bobrov died last year. I felt like I was going to fall. I had hoped to come back and see all three of them, but I missed Coach Bobrov. I still have the check I was going to give him." He holds the paper-a check-between his hands with the print facing him. "I don't know what to do with it, Doctor Frost. I can't throw it out, but I don't know if I can keep it. I'm thinking of trying to find his next-of-kin, even if they are all the way in motherfucking Russia, and giving them this check. What do you think?"  
"I think that you should do whatever will give you closure. He meant a great deal to you, I can tell."  
"I know, but why does it hurt as much as it does? I cried in the damn limo on the way home. I cried like a punchable baby. Felt like my damn heart was tore out. Why? He was just my basketball coach and PE teacher. I mean, I didn't even look for Coach Rose, my boxing coach."  
"He was a father figure to you. Losing him felt like losing your father again; though to a lesser degree. You will mourn him, but in time, the pain will pass."  
"You think?"  
"I do." Once-ler lies back, a wistful look on his face, his ankles crossed and his hands behind his head.  
"I wonder how many rubels ten-thousand dollars is? Don't give me a ratio, either. I can't do math very well. I was a fucking dumbass in school."  
"You shouldn't call yourself something like that. You're not a dumbass."  
"I felt like one."  
"How so?"  
"Well, I went to Mt. Burgess. You said it yourself: you, usually, have to be really smart to get in there. I'm an exception, and I don't know why. I never knew why I was there. All around me were geniuses and prodigies, and I was just some regular, garden-variety kid. You know they only take 1000 students? That's not much for a place like that: a school of international fame. Every single other student except my stupid ass was there by invitation. They were recruited, scouted. Why did they pick me? Was I part of some sort of secret, ass-headed sociological experiment? Dump a normal, dumbass kid in with a bunch of geniuses and prodigies and see what happens. I bet it'll be neat; may even get a laugh or two out of it."  
"Please stop calling yourself a dumbass. It's not good for your psyche or self-esteem."  
"Fine, I'll stop that." He sighs. "It was hard for me, Avery. Sure, I was somewhat popular and had a bunch of friends, but that was to compensate. I had the lowest damn marks out of anyone else. Felt like an idiot. It's one of the biggest reasons I wanted to come home on Holiday. I missed my family and my home, yeah, but I also missed not feeling like a fucking moron all the time. Sucks being the dumbest person in a room, and knowing it." He narrows his eyes. "They post the damn grades outside-for all the exams. Boy, it sure felt nice seeing Struthers, Once-ler at the bottom every-single-mother-fucking-time. Not only did I see that I was at the bottom, but all my class-mates saw, too. Passed by the skin of my teeth every year..." he looks down at his lap, his tone darker. "Maybe that's why mom told me that I'm a failure and wouldn't amount to anything." He looks up, a pleading tone to his voice. "But it was different! She couldn't get that-my school wasn't like the one Brett and Chet went to. Remedial at Burgess was normal everywhere else. I took a lot of remedial classes. That word sucks. Just looking at it makes you feel like an idiot. Ho-boy, I have to be in maths for dumbasses again this year! I don't know why they did that, either. Maths instead of math." He shakes his head and finds his train of thought. "Math sucked the hardest for me. Sure, I could do okay in English, social studies, history, and science, but I bombed math every single year...always got the same professor for math, too. Fuck, I hated that asshole."  
"Tell me about this professor." He takes another drink and leans back.  
"Prick's name was Professor Grubbs. Grubby-ass-grubbs; or when he really pissed me off, Professor Dickweed. Never to his face, though. He always made me come up and do the problem on the chalk-board knowing full-damn-well that I didn't really understand. He never explained it properly. When I'd ask for help, he'd just say: "Well, Mister Struthers, let me try to explain it to you again. I'll talk slowly and use small words this time". Douche-bag. I was just a kid. Eventually, I just sort of gave up on math. Sure, I can add and subtract and multiply. Can't divide in my head. Fractions, decimals, percents-shit like that kicks me right in the dick. Hate the stuff with the triangles, too."  
"Pythagorean therom?"  
"Yeah, I guess." He sighs. "At one point, during a test consisting of 300 problems, I just got sick of it. Had one of those triangle problems. "Find x". So, I put a circle around it and drew an arrow. Wrote "There it is". Professor Grubbs didn't find that as funny as I did, though. Well, it's a foregone conclusion, but I failed that test. He wrote "see me after class" on the test, too. I thought it was about how poorly I had done on the test, as usual-that: "Are you even paying attention, Mister Struthers? A monkey could grasp this concept. Am I going to have to see you in Remedial Maths again next year?" bullshit like always. Nope. He was all pissed off over the "there it is" thing."  
"What did he say to you, Once-ler?"  
"He screamed at me. Like, went off. Called me a little smart-ass and a bunch of other things, but he was yelling so I didn't really catch all of it. He said: "When I went here, the professor would have slapped a child's hand with a yard-stick for that stunt". Like it was even a big deal. I just wrote a snarky answer because I didn't know the answer. I didn't burn the school down or key his car or anything. Scared the hell out of me, though. Math sucked a lot more after that. Broke my spirit; that's when I really said "fuck math"."  
"It's a shame that a lot of teachers are like that. Their attitude ruining children's education: making learning a chore or something to make them feel stupid instead of making it something fun." Remembering something that Once-ler had said earlier, Dr. Frost says: "Wait, earlier, you said something regarding children being at the school instead of home on Holiday. Can you tell me a little more about that?" Rolling his eyes, he replies:  
"Damn, thought you didn't notice that. Don't want to talk about it, but I guess I have to, don't I?" He lies down. "I didn't get to go home on a lot of the Holidays: Summer Holiday and Winter Holiday. My ass stayed at that school, because mom didn't want to drive up there and get me some of the time. Oh no, you have to drive 34 miles to pick your son up so he can come the fuck home for Christmas and summer. Whatever will you do? Bitch. Anyway, I, of course, wasn't the only child who had to stay behind. Mostly foreign kids who's families couldn't afford to fly them back home and send them back in a couple months. When I went there, there were eight kids: including myself, that were there most of the time. I was the only one who didn't live in some other country, so that made me feel like shit."  
"I imagine so."  
"Counting me, there were five boys and three girls. Mikal was there every year-I think I already told you about him: Russian kid who was even skinnier than me, if you can believe it. He was a couple years ahead of me, so we didn't really hang out. Turns out, his family was really poor. Like, they had to give up nearly everything they owned to buy him a one-way plane ticket out of Russia. He studied all the time because he didn't want to let them down and make their sacrifice for nothing. Now, when I said we didn't hang out, I meant during the school-year. He was the one who actually got me to go over there with him and meet the other kids, the residents; because we fucking lived there. That school becomes bigger than hell when it's just eight kids. Lonely, too, so we would hang around each other. Sure, those kids were my friends, too, but not in the same way as the kids my year in my class." He shuts his eyes, hoping to remember everyone. "Like I said, there was Mikal. Gaston was there, too-the French kid from before: same year as Mikal. He wasn't there every year-just most of the time. He was okay, I guess. There was another boy, Xian-kid from China. He was a year behind me, and Benito from Italy. There was a girl from Italy, too-Benito's sister, Angelina. She was a year ahead of me, and Benito was three years ahead of me. A girl from India two years behind me, and a girl from Iceland four years ahead of me. I wasn't as close to the girls-they tended to keep to themselves a lot-so I don't remember their names off the top of my head."  
"What sort of things would the eight of you do together?"  
"Orgies, Satanic human sacrifices-you know, the regular." He laughs. "Nah, just fuckin' with ya." He calms down. "Well, there wasn't a whole hell of a lot to do there. Most of the staff was gone, too. Only a few stayed behind to watch after the kids that had to stay behind and watch after the school. We'd do shit like camp in the Main Hall, dick around outside in the Courtyard...not one year though." A wry smile spreads across his face.  
"What'd you do?" Dr. Frost says, a playful, faux-accusatory tone to his voice.  
"I found me a Master Key." He laughs. "Went in every room. See, normally they'd lock up the class-rooms, so it just felt neat at first to sneak in there. The whole thrill of being somewhere you're not supposed to be. That got old in about a week, though. So, we started going into "staff only" areas like a bunch of little assholes. It was all mundane shit, like records and break rooms, but we felt like we were on some sort of adventure. We thought, since it used to be a chateaux, that we'd find a secret passage-way or some hidden treasure or some sort of monster or something in there."  
"You had to do something to break the monotony."  
"Summer Holiday was better than Winter Holiday, though. At least during Summer Holiday we had the pool, and it was nice enough to go outside and play-the concession store had all kinds of ice-cream, too. Winter Holiday, now that one sucked balls, man. Not only did that mean that I got a big ol' "Fuck you" for Christmas by not getting to come home, but there was almost nothing to do in there. The fact that we spent more time alone, in our dorm rooms, than together only made it colder, more dreary. Some kids'd hang out in the library and read. Dick thing was, they'd turn our internet off before they left-when I in years nine through twelve. That's when we got wireless internet. It's pretty hard to wire an old French Chateau for the interwebz, doctor. Had to drill holes in the walls, and the state didn't want them drilling holes in the walls of "Historical Buildings". They weren't even too keen on us being in school there, so it took longer to get actual internet in the building. There was an annex that was a computer room for that, and no one liked the annex. Plus, it was too cold to walk out there in the winter, even if they didn't lock it before they left."  
"What did you do to kill time during Winter Holiday?"  
"When he was out and about, I'd usually play board games with Mikal, when he wasn't studying, that is. They did leave some sports equipment in the gym, so I'd go shoot some hoops from time to time. I read, too, but reading has always been boring to me. I want to do something that will lessen my boredom, thank you. When I started to remember to bring my Gameboy, I had that...at least, until the batteries ran out, which was usually pretty early into the second day. Then it'd just be a worthless hunk of plastic. Sitting there. Laughing at me. Oh ho ho! You wanna play Ruby? Too bad, shoulda brought more batteries, you gangly fuck. But I gotta stop Team Magma and I almost have Groudon! Oh yeah? The fucks I give, kid. After I started playing guitar, I spent a lot of time doing that. Every single night, though, I'd usually end up staring at that stupid calendar in my room thinking: "Be over. Be over! Be Over! BE OVER! BE! OVER!" I was probably one of the only kids in the world that actually wanted Holiday to be over and classes to start back." Dr. Frost tilts his head to the side. "Ah, shit. What?"  
"You mention Mikal the most. Why is that?"  
"I spent a lot of time with Mikal. That's why. He'd try to help me with my homework when I'd catch him during the year and he wasn't too busy."  
"Was he busy often?"  
"Yeah, actually. He went hard into that shit. Studying all the time, perfect grades, extra classes-all AP, too. I don't even want to think about how hard the AP classes were at Burgess. Scary. I always wished I could do good in school like him, instead of being a dumbassed moron." He catches himself and notices Dr. Frost's disapproving gaze. "Yeah, yeah. I know. I won't do it again." he sighs. "I guess I looked up to Mikal. Damn. Does that make him a father figure, too?"  
"No, more of an older brother figure, I would think." He looks up at the clock. "It seems we've reached our hour. See the receptionist to set up next week's appointment."


	4. Chapter 4

Dr. Frost looks over at the young man who had been staring intently at him for the past several minutes. Once-ler's ankles rest, crossed, on the coffee table in front of him. It was as if both men were daring the other to speak first-a game of chicken. Finally, Avery can wait no longer.  
"Well, since you're obviously not going to say anything unless I prompt you; I'll give you a topic." He says, taking up his pad and pen. Once-ler sets his feet on the ground and raises up a little.  
"Oh? What'cha got?" Dr. Frost hides a smirk  
"I want you to tell me your earliest memories. Your life couldn't have been painful and terrible the second you emerged from your mother's womb."  
"Well, you'd be right. When dad was home, and not sick, it was pretty happy. School was great, too-for the most part."  
"Tell me about when you were a small boy." A warm smile stretches across Once-ler's face.  
"Daddy always took care of me. I mean, no shit-you know why, but he always took care of me. His face is a blur to me, beyond those green eyes. Emerald green and bright. You couldn't not notice 'em. I remember that his hair was about shoulder-length, though. He wore it back in a pony-tail at work. Pony-tails always look douche-y on a guy, but I guess dad did what he had to." He smiles. "My old fedora...it was dad's. He wore it all the time; told me it was Grand-dad's before him, and Great Grand-dad's first."  
"Tell me a bit about your grandparents, Once-ler."  
"Okay." He shrugs. "I don't have to tell you about Grandpa Atticus. I never knew that dick-wad; he died in 1977. Beat to death in prison, I think I already said."  
"Yes, you've told me that."  
"Well, way I understand how he looked-he had short, kind of choppy blond hair, brown eyes, and glasses. Mom said that he had those kinds of eye-glasses that the lenses are mirrored. She said it was scary that you could never see his eyes, only your own reflection, when you'd look at him. He dressed in a tan suit all the time. He was tall as hell, too. Where mom gets it, and where I get it. He wasn't a bean-pole like me, though. Mom," he shudders; talking about the biggest monster to the most fearsome person he knew made him uneasy. "Mom said he was towering, strong. If he wanted you, you weren't getting away. He didn't have a tell, either. Like, you never knew if he was pissed or not. Face never changed. He was this stone-faced, looming, merciless monster; more demon than man. Ubb won't talk about him. At all. I understand that he was very strict. Mom and Ubb wore fucking uniforms at home. Not school uniforms like me, home uniforms. Ubb's was a black jacket, white shirt, black shorts, little black neck-tie, white socks, black dress-shoes. Mom's was a black dress that had little white buttons around the top-at the neck, high, white socks, and black mary-janes. That was their clothes. They weren't allowed to wear anything but that. Isn't that fucked up?"  
"Yes, controlling your children to the point that they have to wear uniforms at home is rather unorthodox."  
"That ain't the half of it, doc. No TV. No music. He had to approve the damn books. If it didn't go along with his rhetoric, it was forbidden. He wasn't a religious fanatic; just a tyrant. He would have been a hell of a dictator. Mom said he'd take up the whole door frame when he'd come home, making it dark around him-his shadow. He brought darkness, for fuck's sake. He didn't talk much, but mom describes his voice as "the rumble of thunder mixed with the blackest ichor", whatever that means. She said they never knew when he'd haul off and beat Ubb. Completely unpredictable like that. All they knew is you did not want to get in his way. When he did get arrested, it took six police officers to get him down, after he had already kicked the shit out of three before. He's lucky they didn't just shoot him. He was a life-insurance salesman. Why was he this hulking behemoth if he was just an insurance salesman? I tell ya, I would probably buy from him; scared he'd shove me up my own ass if I didn't. I heard he killed nine of the guys that eventually beat him to death. Crushed skulls, pushed them through the bars, arms tore out of the sockets, ripped-out jaws. My Grandpa was a scary son-of-a-bitch. There's times I think he wasn't actually an insurance salesman. What do you think, Avery?"  
"I don't know, Once-ler. That level of physical prowess, ferocity, and strength seems out of place for someone in that profession, though."  
"I bet he was some sort of thug or hit-man or something. A designated ass-beater for some crime guy, probably. It's really a wonder he didn't kill Uncle Ubb when he was a kid." He shakes his head. "But you didn't want to hear shit like this today, right? So...Granny Rosalie. I was, actually, really close with her. She didn't live with us. She had a small house in town; she had to be able to get to the doctor and the store and shit easier. She really believed in me. She and Professor Ogawa-they're the whole reason I had the nerve to even try. I used to go visit her a lot. She'd come get me when mom wouldn't-and by that, I mean mom'd get me and drop me off at Granny's. She was a nurse when she was younger. She took good care of me. I remember catching lightning bugs, eating cookies, all that good, Granny stuff with her when I was a little boy. Even Brett and Chet were there, too. That was probably the happiest I was in my childhood-after my dad died, that is."  
"Tell me more about your Granny Rosalie."  
"Well, she was grey-headed by the time I was born, but she used to have black hair, like me. Thick, too. She wore it wavy and shoulder-length with a red beret on her head. Mom says she always wore that red beret. She wore a lot of black and red. She was quiet, gentle, and...a little weak, doctor. I mean, she let Grandpa Atticus beat the fuck out of Ubb and didn't leave. How did she not leave? I mean, I'd get it if she was an evil cunt like my mom, but she wasn't."  
"Perhaps your grandmother was afraid to leave your grandfather-that he would track them down and kill them all if she did. Also, you shouldn't call your mother a cunt, Once-ler."  
"Meh." His eyes grow bright. "Hey, you think that's why mom's evil? Because grandpa was evil?"  
"Perhaps. It is often said that abuse begets abuse."  
"Well, mom was okay with her, but Ubb didn't have a good relationship with her. Ubb says that Grandpa and Granny are probably why mom never married dad."  
"Why does he say that?"  
"Ubb told me that, a long time ago-before Brett and Chet were even born; when my mom and dad were dating-like, a serious couple, but dating-my dad proposed to my mom. She turned him down. He asked her again when she found out she was pregnant with Brett and Chet. Still nope. Again when they were born. Nope again. Pregnant with me. Another nope, if you can believe it. He asked her again when I was born. The last nope. He didn't ask again after that. I can't imagine how dad felt that mom kept turning him down like that. Uncle Ubb says that mom probably saw marriage as a prison; that she blamed Granny and Grandpa being married for the reason Granny never left Grandpa."  
"She was afraid of being caged, as she would see it." Dr. Frost cocks his head to the side. "How did your mother and father meet, anyway? It seems odd that a man working for the FBI would meet someone like your mother."  
"Uncle Ubb. He was doing work as a psychological profiler for them; the feds. Dad just transferred there. Ubb worked with him-not like, worked with him worked with him-but they saw each other around the building and got to know each other pretty well. He decided to introduce dad to mom, and they hit it off. For some unknown reason that bewilders the shit out of me, dad fell in love with mom. Maybe she wasn't always evil; who knows?" He leans back. "But, you wanna hear fun, happy shit, right? Well, when I was in my late childhood-early teens, I actually did have a lot of fun dicking around with Brett and Chet when it was just the three of us, or, at least, when all the adults were gone. Around that time, Marietta was becoming a ghost, and Clementine was always trying to grow plants."  
"What sort of things would the three of you do together?"  
"Dumb-assed shit. Stupid stunts, mostly. Like, one time, I rode down the stairs in a laundry hamper. It was going pretty good until I tipped over and smacked my head against the stair-rail. I got knocked the fuck out! Apparently, I flipped over completely when I reached the bottom of the stairs, because when they woke me up, I was all rag-dolled. We'd get a hold of fire-works in July and set 'em off. Not that crappy shit, I mean M-80s and stuff. Light things on fire-you know, the regular, destructive teenage-boy stuff. Some things that, looking back, don't even make sense to me and make me think : "Why the hell did we do that?"-like, punching the hell out of each-other to see who could stand it longest. Prize was merely bragging rights. Then came the day that we learned that a box-spring is actually a lot harder than a mattress. We took turns running into our room, tripping on purpose, and falling face-first into that damn thing. It was Chet's we were doing that with, by the way. His box-spring. The goal there, was to actually get hurt the most, because that meant that you were tough and cool. I won. I broke my nose. We felt like those guys on Jackass. That show ruled. We'd sneak and watch it together when mom and everyone'd be asleep. We'd watch all kinds of TV shows together when everyone'd be asleep. Hell, it's how I started watching Adult Swim. Started out with "Space Ghost: Coast to Coast". They'd wake me up for that; my favourite show. I still watch it when I can."  
"It surprises me how close you actually were with your brothers. What happened to change that?"  
"Nothing. They tease me sometimes, but we're brothers. It'd be abnormal if they didn't. Even when they turned 16 and got their licenses, we still hung out, when they wouldn't be with their girlfriends. I'm 3 years younger than them, so I had to step up my game when they turned sixteen so they'd still let me, a "little kid", hang out with them."  
"How did you step up your game?"  
"Drugs and drinkin'." He narrows his eyes at Dr. Frost before he speaks. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. Bleh to you, too. It was just pot and whiskey, for fuck's sake. It wasn't like I was main-lining heroin and drinking straight vodka. I liked the pot more than the whiskey. Pot's cool. I still like to get me some from time to time. Chill out, smoke a bowl, watch TV. It makes everything better, and you think some deep shit while you're high."  
"You still use marijuana?"  
"God, don't call it that. Sounds lame when people call it that, but yeah dad, I still smoke weed sometimes. Nothing'll grow worth a shit around here, so I have it shipped in. Don't say a fucking word, okay? Cops don't need to know about it, and I'll just buy my way out of it and have the PR people keep it quiet." He sighs, loudly. "I'm through talking today. See ya next week."


	5. Chapter 5

He lies on his back, tossing a rubber ball up and catching it, determined to not look at Avery Frost, sitting across from him. He had been doing this for the past twenty minutes. The aging man has had all he can take and speaks up.  
"I know you don't want to be here today, Once-ler. You could have cancelled, but you still came in; you wanted to come in today on some level. So, what do you have? Let me hear it." He catches the ball and turns his head to face Dr. Frost, but the annoyed look does not leave his face.  
"Yeah. I got something, all right. It's a shitty memory; you sure you want me to talk about it? I don't really want to, but you're right. I did come in here for a reason, today." He sits up, resting the rubber ball on the dark-coloured table in front of him. "I know I complain about my mom a lot, and today isn't going to be any different. She was a horrible mother, though. Treated my brothers and I like shit...Eh..." He rubs his right arm, anxiously. "It's just, well, only me and two other people know about this. I...I've kept it buried for so long. It fucked me up a lot-worse than the revolver incident I told you about before."  
"What happened?"  
"It was after my dad died. School had started back up, so Brett and Chet were at school. Uncle Ubb had the day off, and took Marietta and Clementine to the planetarium, and Grizelda was at work. I didn't get to go. Ma didn't want to have to pay him back for it, or some such nonsense. She had been lying in her and dad's room a lot; sleeping all day. My uncle had took her booze-trying to dry her out. I had found a tiger lily outside and thought to bring it in to her-I thought it might cheer her up. She just lied there on the bed, looking at me. After a few minutes, she took the flower out of my hand, sat it on her nightstand and told me it was really pretty. I actually thought she was proud of me. What she said next made me uncomfortable then, and makes me sick to think about, now. She asked me if I wanted to be pretty, too. I told her that I'm a boy and boys are handsome. Girls are pretty. She said that we could fix that. I didn't have time to run before she grabbed me. She snatched me off my feet and took me to Marietta and Clementine's room. I tried so hard to get away, but she still had a hold of me, going through this wardrobe in their room. She took out one of Mari's dresses...I...I still remember the damn thing. It was red, pink, and yellow. Big, yellow ribbon. She took off my clothes, sat me on a bed, and left me in my underwear for a moment or two, looking at me. I was so afraid. I couldn't get up. She got a pair of Marietta's panties and took my underwear off...she...she put them on me..."tucked" me, too. I squirmed and cried, and she put the dress on me. Then, she put make-up on me and a ribbon in my hair." His face had gradually become more and more pale as he spoke, the look of unease taking his features. "When she was done with that shit, she asked me if I wanted to have a tea-party. When I told her no, she smacked the piss out of me, then asked again. I was so afraid she'd slap me again, that I did what she said. We went back to my cousin's room and used a tea-set she'd not even taken out of the box-Mari wasn't the tea party sort. Uncle Ubb came home...he caught her. I was so scared, but so happy to see someone there to save me. I got up and ran to him. She just sat there, glaring at him while I told him what she did to me. He had me run along while he stayed behind...and they fought. I just wanted to get that shit off of me and start being a boy again." Dr. Frost, finding it hard to keep a calm demeanor about him, says:  
"Had your mother received psychiatric treatment yet, or...?"  
"Nah. She did that a year later."  
"Had we met, yet?"  
"Nope. I'd first come to you in a couple months."  
"I have to say, our sessions now are a lot different than the ones we had back then-in more ways than I had expected. Why didn't you tell me you were being abused when you were a child? I asked you, out-right, at one point. You told me you weren't." Once-ler's lip twitches.  
"I was scared. Mom told me if I told anyone that she'd been hitting me, then the state would take me and my brothers away, split us up, and we'd never see each other again...she also told me that I'd be given to people who would take my clothes off and hurt me in a way I'd never forget. I...I didn't know what she meant by that back then, but I do now. She was threatening me with molestation, wasn't she? I mean, there's really no other way to interpret that, is there?"  
"Yes, that's how it seems. It doesn't surprise me, really. A lot of abusive parents threaten their child with that. I assure you, you would have been put into a suitable foster home."  
"Well, what's done is done. Can't really go back and fix it now."  
"No, of course not."  
"I don't remember our old sessions very well. I'm a little curious about them."  
"You were brought to me because, as you said, you couldn't enjoy anything. You had stopped sleeping. The first time I saw you, you had been awake for five days on end. I'd never seen a child that small stay awake that long. What you said to me when I asked you why you weren't sleeping...you asked me :"What if I don't wake up?". You were a very troubled boy...I hope I helped, even if it was just a little."  
"I think you did, Dr. Frost. No telling how fucked up I'd be now if I wasn't sent to you back then. You were a good guy, Avery. You listened to me and treated me like a person instead of a problem." He pauses for a moment. "You know, they say that boys who have to grow up without a father make a habit of "collecting" father figures. I think you were the first of many. You, Professors Alvarez and Ogawa at school. Coach Bobrov-my basketball coach when I was a kid. Hell, even my uncle filled that role, to some degree. He taught me how to ride a bike and how to shoot a gun. He said that every boy should know how to use a rifle. Even though I could tell he felt awkward as ten fucks, he gave me "the talk" when it came time for that mess. Sure, it's not the same as it would've been if my dad survived, but it was good enough, I suppose." He stands, remembering to grab the rubber ball. "Well, it's been real. See you next week, Avery."


	6. Chapter 6

Barely even watching where he's going, Once-ler strides into the room. His brow is knit, and he's focused on untying a knot on a cord hanging from his pocket. Sitting, he gives up and puts the bright red cord back in his pocket.  
"Need help?" Avery asks. He studies the elderly gent for a moment or two, then takes the knotted ball of red wire from his pocket-ear-buds-and hands them to him.  
"Sure." Avery gets to work, carefully untying the mess.  
"So, what brings you in, today-you know, other than the appointment?"  
"There were a bunch of spooky times when I was growing up. Lots. Not just fucking Ratland McBasement back home, or mom being a drunk weirdo, but other shit, too."  
"Oh? And what would that be?"  
"You remember me telling you that Marietta is a professional psychic, right?"  
"Yes."  
"Well, she's not the only one. Before her, my great-granny Sybil was, too. I don't know a whole hell of a lot about her, but I know that. A Clairvoyant, they call it, I think. Like I said, I don't know much about her, but I do know that my Uncle Ubb inherited that bullshit from her."  
"Oh? Did he tell you this or...?"  
"Nah, I over-heard him talking about it with Grizelda when I was a kid. Apparently, in addition to being a big ol' shit-bag, Grandpa Atticus was like Carrie's mom from Carrie. All weird and dogmatic and "yer the devil" and shit. I didn't really catch much about it, but apparently, that was the reason he beat the hell out of Ubb when he was little. Claimed he must have a "devil" in him or something to be able to see stuff like that." He takes the ear-buds back from Dr. Frost. "Marietta always said what she and Ubb had was more something they like to call "Post-cognitive". I think, she said, it means they can see what's already happened. I don't know how that's supposed to help anything. I mean, if it's already happened, does it really matter? Can't do anything about it."  
"Does she do crime-scene psychic work?"  
"Nah. That shit is a bunch of hokum, anyways. Bullshit. Cold-reading bullshit. That's not what Mari does...I've seen what she does..." He looks at his feet. "I found that out, myself."  
"How so?"  
"When I was around thirteen, I kept seeing this woman in a dirty old white dress; like the old-timey people wore-with the apron and shit. Like that. She'd stand in the corner of my bedroom at night and stare at me. It'd always start the same. Three in the damn morning, she'd just sort of glide over to me. She'd touch my forehead and stare down at me, look me in the eyes. Then, she'd just go back into the dark. It scared the hell out of me, so I'd just lay there until daylight. I didn't know what she'd do if I fell asleep. Would she drag me off to ghost-world? Try to possess my ass? I didn't know."  
"Go on."  
"Anyway, I told Marietta about it. She was always so fixated on ghosts and dead-shit. I'll talk about that in a second; don't want to get side-tracked again. That happens to me too much. She just looked at me and said: "So you've seen her yourself, now?" I asked her how long she knew there was a ghost going into my room and looking at me. She said "A while, now." Always with those cryptic answers. Mari is weird. I asked her about the ghost, asked her if she knew what it wanted, why it kept touching my head like that. She told me that the ghost lived in our house a long time ago. Her husband and her sons all died of cholera or something and the one in my room was the last one left alive. The youngest. He was my age when he died in there. The ghost thought I was her son...she had to bury him herself. You'll never guess where, doc. Right in the basement."  
"Was anything done about it?"  
"We dug up the spot she told me about and, as sure as I am sitting here right now, we found human bones. Had 'em taken away and buried. That didn't stop it, though."  
"What happened?"  
"If anything, it only made the ghost fixate on me more. She'd mess with my hair, tug on my clothes and blanket, try to get me out of my bed...then she started weeping and muttering the name "John" over and over again. Maybe we should have just left the bones in there. I had had just about enough of that bullshit, so I told Mari about it, told her that it only got worse." He stops short. "Now, you'll probably notice something, doctor. My mom, Uncle Ubb, Aunt Grizelda, and my brothers, Brett and Chet are here with me. Notice who is not. Wanna know why?"  
"Why is that? I was starting to wonder why your cousins aren't with you."  
"Despite the complete cluster-fuck of religions in my household growing up, just about everyone disapproved of what Marietta was doing. You see, she got way into the occult. Like, way into it. I didn't and don't give two fucks what she does and believes, but the rest of 'em were a bit more hard-nosed. She left earlier than I did. Kicked out, more like. Worshiped spirits, had all these crystals and candles and sand and salt. Fucking sticks, too. Why did she need sticks? She'd sneak and buy books on that crap, magick-she always made sure that I knew what she was doing was with a damn "k"-psychic projection, ghosts, stuff like that. She "banished" the ghost from my room. I don't know what she did in there, and she wouldn't tell me, but it was gone, and that's all that mattered." He sits back, blowing a few loose strands of hair back from his face. "That wasn't what got her kicked out of the house, though."  
"What did?"  
"I said she was fixated on death and ghosts...she'd started bringing home bones of all sorts. Birds, first. Bird skeletons. Then mice, rats, cats, dogs. It was a dried-out old dead dog that did it, but we found the skulls of a few of our old horses from before our family farm turned to shit in there, too. Mom swore up and down that Mari was a "Necromancer" doing "Black Magick" in there. Ubb thought she was insane and tried to get her to check into a mental institution. Brett and Chet started calling her a witch. Clementine went quiet and started avoiding her like she had the plague, and Grizelda just didn't say anything. I don't know why. Seems like she would, but she didn't. You know what I think, doctor?"  
"What do you think, Once-ler?"  
"I'm kind of with Ubb on this. I appreciate her getting rid of that ghost for me, that was pretty kick-ass and awesome of her, but animal bones-that was too far; I draw the line, there. She started becoming darker and darker in addition to creepier and creepier. Creepy Mari be creepin'. Started listening to fucking "Ulver" in the middle of the night. That band scares the hell out of me, long before one of their songs-I think it was called "_Teaching in Silence_" or something like that, was in that movie "_Sinister_". Could have been called something else, but I don't know. I wasn't like: "Hey, Marietta-you know that hour-long song you listen to that makes me want to piss my pants? What's it called?" Even worse for Clem. I asked her how the hell she stood sleeping in the same room as that shit when being across the hall from it scared the hell out of me."  
"What did she tell you?"  
"At first, I just tried to sleep through it, but it always gave me nightmares. Now, I just wear headphones and listen to my own music. I probably should have done that, too." He sighs. "I was always close with her, but once she started acting like a living ghost, that was it for me; I was just too uncomfortable around her. Her eyes were sunken back in her head, and I'm not sure if it was all make-up, and she was gaunt and had this weird pallor to her skin. Always wore long-ass dresses that covered her feet so it looked like she was gliding around instead of walking. I mean, when most people try to be creepy like that, they fail because it's obvious that they're trying to be creepy, but she pulled it off. The ability to move silently really added to that. Ghost up to you and scare the hell out of you, then ghost away without saying a word. She had to be crazy to turn like that, right? To get that far into that shit?"  
"Sometimes, people let their obsessions get the better of them, to where the possession owns the possessor."  
"Yeah, but I mean, she really believed all that shit. Delusional. The day she "left", I heard her talking to Ubb outside. He said to her: "I really think you need to get help, Mari. What you're doing isn't healthy-and I don't just mean the bringing in cadavers. None of this really works. It's all in your mind. Never forget how powerful the mind really is."."  
"What did she say?"  
""Just because you're afraid of what you are, dad, doesn't mean that I should be. You take those pills to force away that part of yourself; to suppress it. You don't want to see anymore. Afraid of your own power. Seeing into the world of the dead is a gift. Great-granny Sybil knew this. I know this. Why can't you see this?" That was the last thing she said before she packed all her shit and left."  
"How did that make you feel?" He shrugs.  
"It really didn't change anything. I mean, I knew she was too far gone with that when she showed me her altar. Candles, a pentangle-she made sure that I knew the difference between a pentagram and a pentangle-and this shelf-type thing. Can't imagine how that was for Clem; having to look at that mess all the time."  
"Did she talk to you about her beliefs?" He rubs his right arm and bites his lower lip.  
"Yeah. She told me a bit about that stuff-about the magick. She told me that the candles had specific meanings-different colours meant different things. She showed me glyphs, runes, something, and told me what they meant-which ones I should avoid, which ones were "good". She gave me this crystal she charged with "positive energy". I took it to be nice, but I don't really believe in that stuff. It's all in your head. The way she looked at me when I joked that she'd come a long way from the ouija board we'd played with as kids, though. She looked pissed. I don't know what was wrong. She went from fine to I'm going to tear your fucking head off in a split second. I got out of there while I still had a head."  
"Perhaps you offended her beliefs. Perhaps she felt like you belittled them with that."  
"I didn't mean anything by it...mostly just a comment to break the air because I felt really uneasy looking at that shit."  
"So, you say that the two of you played with a ouija board as kids. Tell me about that."  
"Well, we just did it a couple times. Mom saw the board and flipped her shit. Flipped our shit, more like. She flipped the board over, I mean. Later, she burned it. I don't know what her problem was. She gonna torch Candy Land and Shoots and Ladders next? I'd best hide Monopoly. Mari took it harder than I did." He sighs. "After the comment, we grew apart. I felt more and more uncomfortable around her, and she was pretty pissed over the comment, still."  
"Have you heard from her since? Has she tried to contact you at all?"  
"Nope, actually. I'm surprised. I thought she would when words of my success reached her, but I still haven't heard a peep from her. Last thing she talked to me about-last thing before she left, was that she was trying to find some sort of ritual to transcend this dimension and enter another or something like that. I don't follow, and it just sounds crazy to me, but I kept my mouth shut, this time."  
"Transcend this dimension and enter another? I won't lie, Once-ler. I studied on the occult-did my dissertation on the psychology behind the occult and the people that believe in that sort of thing. I won't go into the entire thing-too long for that, but some folks believe that there are different dimensions all around us: in the mirror, in dreams, in shadows. Some believe that it is possible to open a door between these dimensions through a number of rituals. Perhaps that is what your cousin was talking about."  
"So, she's bat-shit mad, but there are plenty of other crazy-assed people that believe the same thing?"  
"I wouldn't go so far as to prejudge the people that believe that sort of thing, but yes." He tilts his head to the side.  
"You think maybe she could be in some sort of commune or something with other folks like that? Damn, I hope not." Dr. Frost takes up his notebook again. "What's up? What do you want to talk about now? You only pick that thing up when you want to talk to me about something."  
"You've told me why Marietta isn't here, but you've not told me why Clementine isn't here. Why is your cousin Clementine not with you and the rest of your family?" He blows, annoyed, and rolls his eyes. Slumping back, he begins:  
"Well, Clem and I weren't so close to begin with. I mean, she was born two years after me. Mom was pissed when she was born. It was right before my third birthday that she was born-my dad was already in the hospital."  
"Why do you think that your mother was angry that your younger cousin had been born?"  
"It's because Clementine is a girl. Like I said before; mom wanted a girl. Not in front of us, but I could hear her going ape-shit in her room: "Bullshit! Motherfucking, cock-sucking bullshit! Why the fuck does Ubb get two daughters? Two?! I guess I don't get mine-stuck with three sons, instead. I wanted a girl; not three boys! It's not fair! He already got one girl with Marietta-why does he get to have two now, with Clementine?! If I could give him Once-ler in trade for Clementine, I would. Ubb's a dick, though, and won't let me do that. I know him well enough for that. He'd say: "They're not trading cards, Isabella. I can't just trade you my daughter for your son. They're human beings, not objects." It's alright for him, I guess." Then she just started screaming again; sounded like she was flipping shit over in there, too. I've never seen her more mad in my life."  
"That must've been hard for you; being that young and hearing that."  
"It was. I don't know if that was the reason why, but I tended to stay away from Clem-well, not stay away; I didn't avoid her, I just didn't hang out with her like I did pre-living ghost Marietta."  
"Do you think that that was a little hard for Clementine? That, perhaps, she felt lonely? Brett and Chet were six years older than her. They wouldn't have wanted to hang out with a girl six years younger than them. You and Marietta were closer in age to her."  
"I know that; and me and Mari would try to include her as much as we could, but Clementine was way different than the rest of the family. More than me, even."  
"How so?"  
"She was so skittish and soft-spoken. At least I'd stand up for myself, sometimes. She'd just cry and go to her and Marietta's room. She was way sensitive, too-if you couldn't tell by the crying. When I said that she's soft-spoken, I mean that not only is her voice light, she talks so damn quietly that you can barely hear her. Mousey. She spent most of her time outside, trying to get anything to grow in the soil around my house...she's in Green Peace. She left to join them a couple months before I left home." Dr. Frost can barely conceal his shock.  
"Really?" Once-ler laughs.  
"Yeah, I know. Fuckin' crazy, right? I'm cutting down trees left and right, and she's in Green Peace! I mean, no shit she's not around me, now." His tone changes-just a little-his voice becoming a little sad. "She'd never want to see me again with this going on. She probably hates me, now."  
"I'm sure your cousin doesn't hate you, Once-ler."  
"Why the fuck wouldn't she? I mean, Green Peace is the biggest thorn in Thneed, Inc.'s side. Always on us. The PR people have to try to shut them up as much as they can, and the lawyers deny everything they say, but Green Peace stays on our back. There is no way that Clementine approves of this bullshit. There's no way she couldn't hate me, now." He looks at the floor. "She probably even denies being my cousin..." He looks up, pointing to the clock. "Hour's up."


	7. Chapter 7

"You know, Doc, for not giving a damn about my brothers and I, mom sure did have a bug up her ass over what girls we liked."  
"How so?"  
"She's always had a problem with the girls my brothers and I have liked. My mom is racist. Like, weird-level racist. She has a problem with pretty much every one who wasn't British or, to a lesser degree, of French descent. Scottish, Hungarian, German, and oh-holy-hell, the Irish. She hated on the Irish every chance she got. I never got it. She doesn't like my girl-friend, Naomi, because she's from California, Scottish, and has Autism. She had a problem with Brett's girl, Phisher, for being half Chinese, half Egyptian. Even more of an ass, because she was nice to Dr. Huang-Phisher's mom-to her face. She shit a whole motherfucking court-house over Chet...I saw that coming when she flipped her shit over his "Destiny's Child" poster-had him a thing for Beyonce...then he brought Tammi home. Dear lord. She wouldn't even look at him for a month-you know, after the inital bitching was over. I still remember her: "I didn't raise you that way!". I actually do a good mimicry of the voice for Moltar on _Space Ghost_, and if I wanted to get back handed into oblivion, I totally would have said, in that voice," Once-ler does his crack impression of Moltar on _Space Ghost: Coast to Coast_. "You didn't raise us at all"." He goes back to his normal voice. "I thought it, though."  
"Hmm. I never picked up on any racism when I've talked to her."  
"That's the being nice to your face thing again." He shakes his head. "At least she didn't have an influence on me with that noise, but she wasn't much of a role model."  
"Yes, you've told me about some of the people who have filled that role for you. I am glad to be counted among them, thank you for that. What about the other role models you've had? Can you tell me about some of them?"  
"Okay." He shrugs. "My uncle, of course. I've spoken about him a bit already. A lot of people don't really think about it that much, but he's actually a rather smart guy, it's just mom keeps him down."  
"Yes, I've actually read his article in "Psychology Today"-it was on the nature of free will. It was fascinating, really."  
"He taught me a lot of neat shit when I was little. Taught me about space, the elements, all sorts of shit. I mean, he gave some pretty childhood-punching answers to questions little kids ask; giving me the answer to why animals can't talk, why the sky is blue, why the sun shines-he ended up telling me and Marietta about stars, about most of them we see actually being dead, scared the hell out of us with Novas and Supernovas; telling us that one day, the sun's going to go Nova. Then telling us all about Black Holes. I mean, shit. Don't worry, kiddo. The sun will kill everything one day. Oh! And those Black Holes I told you about: some of them move around and we can't even see them! We only know they're there because of the effect of their gravitational field on the things around them. Now, go to sleep. Fuck."  
"It seems like he really cared about you and your cousin's education."  
"He did. He's also curb-stomped some childhood beliefs. Explaining how Santa can't be real-to think about it logically: "Now, Once-ler, you know Santa can't be real. There are around six-billion people on this Earth right now. For simplicity's sake, let's say that one-third of them are children. That's still two-billion people. The only way someone could get to two-billion different households in 24 hours-because remember how the world spins-he would have to travel faster than the speed of light, which is impossible or teleportation, which is also impossible. Then, take into consideration that everything is composed of matter, Once-ler. Let's split the amount of children who are "nice" down to half, so it's just easier-one billion people. One billion or more presents. There isn't a thing that can hold that much. The mass is simply too much, thus Santa cannot be real. Now, one could posit the theory of Pocket Dimensions and Worm Holes to accomplish those ends, but this is neither the time nor the place for Theoretical Physics." I was five, and it was Christmas Eve. It felt like my brain melted. Damn, Ubb."  
"That is an awful lot to lay on a child that small."  
"Professor Ubb, kicking the shit out of everything you believe in with the power of science, motherfucker." He laughs. "The best one, the one that pulled down the fuckin' curtain the hardest, was the light at the end of the tunnel-the whole light when you're dead thing. When I was about seven, we saw something on TV about someone who had a near-death experience and talked about going to Heaven. He laughed and shook his head. I asked him what was funny, and he explained to me that the dying brain sort of panics, in a way, and starts throwing up anything it can as it dies. People seeing "heaven" or "hell" when they have near-death experiences are just seeing what their subconscious projects; based on societal beliefs and the person's own feelings and beliefs. Tried to explain Drake's Equation to me that same year."  
"Perhaps he just wanted you to start thinking logically as early as possible. That, or he wanted to be an ass." Dr. Frost has stopped scribbling in his notes and sat the pen down. "What about your other replacement father figures? What about Professor Alvarez?"  
"He always had my back, he was cool. Stephen Alvarez. He was my home-room teacher, all the way up. He knew my situation at home, but could only do what he could do, you know? He even tried his damnedest to get my mom to come get me one weekend, and would try his best to persuade her to let me come home on the Christmas Holidays when she wouldn't. Fuck, he was probably the reason I got to go home at all. When I got my ass kicked up and down the ring during the match for the title in my division in boxing when I was fifteen, he made her come get me so I could get better at home instead of in a cramped-up, windowless dorm-room after I got out of the hospital. I had a cracked skull, a concussion, and a big-ass cut on my head, along with a broken nose, busted lip, and black eye. I don't know how in the rubber-fuck that kid was in my weight division, but he beat my ass. Fists like frozen hams in pillow cases on him."  
"And Professor Ogawa?"  
"Oh, man, Professor Ogawa. Kentarou Ogawa. He had this weird voice-didn't have a Japanese accent; he was born here, just his folks decided to name him Kentarou-usually just called himself Ken. He was soft-spoken, but at the same time, had this sound like he was genuinely interested in anything any of us had to say. He was the art teacher; sent me to the basement storage to get extra canvas and paints a lot. I knew that basement better than anyone who wasn't one of the janitors, and that place was scary as balls. Anyway, Professor Ogawa was the sort of teacher that thinks that he can really change the world if he can get through to even one student-you know the kind. Sure, it made him a great teacher, but it made him a huge push-over. He was just so nice that a lot of the other kids would walk all over him. I guess he really supported my artistic inclinations. If it wasn't for him believing in me, I probably wouldn't have had the nerve to even leave to try to make my Thneed."  
"What about the last one you mentioned, Coach Bobrov?"  
"Well, as it would suggest, he was a coach not a professor. He was my basketball coach all the way up, from first grade to 12th grade. Ivan Bobrov. Russian guy, lived back there during the Communist times, saw the wall come down and when it did, he nope'd it the fuck out of Russia to America. Crazy, but he was a doctor-a surgeon-in Russia and became a basketball coach in America. He was the "dad" kind of father figure; taught me sports and stuff. He wasn't a hard-ass or a dick or nothin', but he did the more stereotypical "dad" things and could usually patch me up really quick if I got fucked up on the court."  
"I'll bet that that was handy."  
"It was. In fact, he was the one to notice all the shit that happened when I fell head-first into that pole-the ones the ropes are on at the sides of the boxing ring. Didn't have padding on it for some damn reason. I don't remember much after the other kid clocked me in the face and I went down, but he got me out of the ring. There was a shit-load of blood where I had a cut from my forehead up to my scalp; deep enough on my scalp to need stitches. I still got a scar. Wanna see?" He pulls back some hair on the right side of his head, revealing a pale, white scar. Dr. Frost winces.  
"Eh. That must've been a nasty cut. I don't do blood."  
"Really?" Dr. Frost chuckles.  
"It's why I went into psychology. If I'm dealing with blood, I've done something wrong." Once-ler laughs.  
"Yeah, I guess you're right." He shakes his head. "I like you, Avery. Anyway, he brought me back to the locker room, got the bucket-you know, the one with water in it at the side of the ring? Got it for me to puke in. He had the boxing coach, this willowy turd named Chris Rose, hold me up and had him hold that bucket. He told him that I might puke, and poked at the wound on my head-seeing if I had a skull fracture or not."  
"Did you throw up?"  
"Oh, hell yes I did. At least, that's what I've been told. Coach Bobrov shined a light in my eyes, seeing if I had a concussion or not. They called an ambulance and told my mom what happened. You don't have to be psychic to know that she gave zero fucks and only went because she had to. I was in there a while, a lot longer than I originally thought. Heh, a couple days after I first "woke up", I tried to go to class...in the hospital. The nurse had to get me to go back to bed, told me that classes were cancelled that day."


	8. Chapter 8

Once-ler and Dr. Frost have been sitting in the dimly-lit, dark walled room for quite a long time, only the sound of the white-noise machine and Dr. Frost tapping his pen against his pad of paper.  
"Do you have anything to say, or are you going to sit here in silence for an hour?"  
"What do you want me to talk about? You already know a lot."  
"Let's hear some happy things; I know you've got 'em in there. You have any hobbies? Your libido couldn't have been focused entirely on your Thneed."  
"Libido? Doc, I don't want to fuck it."  
"A libido isn't always sexual."  
"Okay, wanting to know what I like to do for fun. Well, I play guitar. I'll talk about why, later. You want to hear happy shit, so we're not going to get into that today." He clears his throat and starts to sit up straight, only to lie down on his back, staring at the dark ceiling. He crosses his long legs at the ankle and rests his gloved arms behind his head. "I like video games."  
"Video games? What kind?"  
"I like a lot of games-horror games mostly. You know, stuff like Resident Evil and Condemned and Fatal Frame and Eternal Darkness. I like to run around and kill monsters and stuff. Shootin' shit in the face!"  
"Shooting shit in the face? Rather violent, Once-ler."  
"That's what makes it fun, Avery. It's all a bunch of bullshit about violent video games, you know that? It's a good way to vent frustration, too. Games are just as much of an art form as movies and books-in fact, I think it's better."  
"How so?"  
"Movies and books are passive consumerism-you're just watching what's happening. With games, you've got active consumerism, doing shit that affects the outcome of whatever happens in that game. You actually give a fuck about what happens; how it ends. Especially on games that have more than one ending."  
"Tell me about those, Once-ler."  
"My favourite series: _Silent Hill_ is really bad about that. All the games have, at least, three endings. Like, take _Silent Hill 2_, for example. There's the basic ending where James and the little girl, Laura, wander off into the fog through what looks to me like a grave-yard. I don't care for Laura, little pain in the ass. Locks you in a room with the damn Flesh Lips-things that are in cages in the ceiling and choke you with some sort of tendril and their feet. Worse than they sound. I thought: I don't give a damn that you're a kid, when I get out of here, I'm gonna kick your little ass for that. "  
"What other endings does it have?" Dr. Frost says, trying to get him back on track.  
"Well, there's the one where he kills himself; _In Water_, I think it's called. You don't see it, but you hear a car going, wood breaking, and something big as hell hitting the water. That one is a little tough to get. You have to look at Mary's picture, read the note, and keep looking at the knife Angela gives you off and on. I don't know how many times, so I kept doing it every 15 minutes to be sure. That didn't get old real fast. There's one where he leaves with Maria, this woman who I think is just in his head, but I don't know. It's a trippy game. You gotta be nice to her a lot for that one; like, watch where you're going and not bump into her and check on her in the hospital level. There's the two joke endings; the UFO one and the dog one. Finally, there's one that I fell bass-akwards into: the occult ending, where James does some ritual to bring Mary back to life."  
"How did you fall bass-akwards into that?"  
"I have this really bad tendency to pick up everything I see in a game. It's a big problem in _Fallout_ and _Elder Scrolls_ games. I pick up plates and cups and forks and shit." He forces his face into an over-bite and says, in a dopey voice: "_You're over-encumbered and cannot run_." He stops making that face and goes back to his normal tone. "Gee-whiz, you don't say? Then I have to dump my inventory on the ground, and it looks like a flea market threw up at my feet. I also like to corpse-stack. Don't give me the ability to pick up the dead person and move them around if you don't want me to stack them on top of each other in a neat little pile or hide them behind a table."  
"Tell me about Silent Hill, Once-ler. You're getting distracted again." Finding his train of thought again, Once-ler responds:  
"Well, for that ending, you have to pick up the White Chism in the second apartment building. Then you have to get the black book from this news paper thingy at the gas station where you get the big pipe weapon-near the bowling alley. I like the plank better, but whatever. After that, this goblet or chalice or something in a display case at the historical society, then the red book from the library in the hotel after you've watched the video. I was surprised that I got a special ending just from picking shit up."  
"Sometimes habits pay off; but not very often." Dr. Frost says. 'Picking up everything he sees, even cutlery is obsessive behavior, and as macabre as it sounds, the corpse-stacking is, too.' "Why do you think you like video games like that, Once-ler?" He shrugs.  
"I dunno. I just like 'em; think they're fun."  
"What kind are they?"  
"I think they class it as psychological horror. The games fuck with your head. It doesn't have those dumb-ass jump-scares you see in too many horror games. A jump-scare isn't a real scare; it's being startled. There's a big difference. Instead, with the old Silent Hill games, the ambience builds up, and gives you this feeling like something is after you. You can't see much in the games for all the fog, so that's scary, too. Not being able to see what's around you is pretty scary. You really get this feeling of isolation and dread; especially in Silent Hill 2. That's the best one, right there. I like it best, any way."  
"So, you're saying you like them because they're scary?"  
"Yeah. It's like reading scary stories and stuff. I'm not in any real danger, so it's okay, and I get a nice rush from the creepy feeling that something is going to eat my face the second I close my eyes." He flexes the fingers on his right hand towards his face and makes a half-growl, half-hiss noise. "The games aren't really scary. The stories are what gets me."  
"How so?"  
"I'll be sitting in my chair, reading 'em, and start to feel like whatever it is is slowly creeping up the back of the chair to drop down on me like a spider and eat me alive, or I'll be laying there in the bed, hours after I'd read whatever it is, and hear some noise, and this dumb-as-hell part of my brain says: "Holy-fucking-shit, it's the monster from the story! I am so dead!" though I know it isn't. It was just a story written by some dumb-fuck just like me on the internet."  
"Which of these stories got to you the most?"  
"Honestly? I'm not too sure. _Humper Monkey's Ghost Story_ is a good one. Thought Tandy was gonna get me-in the back of my mind while I was trying to sleep-for a damn month. Couldn't look at the window at night; I fucking knew Tandy'd be there, looking at me. Fuck a bunch of mirrors, too. I kept the one in my bathroom covered for half a month. Pen Pal has that "real world" horror thing going for it. No monster, and it could really happen, too. _Bedtime_ is some spooky shit, too. Some sort of desiccated monster living in the wall, ready to drag you off to hell through the wall the second you fall asleep. Scariest, though? That's a tie: _So I Thought I Ate a Spider in My Sleep_ and _The Crawling House on Black Pond Road_."  
"Tell me about those, Once-ler. Why are they the scariest to you?"  
"Parasites, doc. Fuckin' parasites. Different bug, but same thing, kind of. In the first one, the protagonist eats a spider in their sleep, like they thought, but it wasn't in their stomach. It was in their lungs. Thousands and thousands of spider eggs in their lungs. I still get a little afraid, in the back of my mind, that I'm gonna eat a spider in my sleep and end up with a shit-load of tiny spiders in me. Second one, that one really fucks with me. Spiders are a little creepy, yeah, but I straight-up can't handle bees, wasps, and hornets. I used to run into the house in pure terror if a bee got too close to me as a kid, and would lock myself in the bathroom, get in the tub, and wrap a damn towel around my head if one got in the house. The thought of them using my body as a nest..." he shudders. "Don't even like thinking about that. Not as bad, but we also have all those earwigs and centipedes biting the shit out of the main-character as he slept. In the sleeping bag with him."  
"I admit, that is unnerving to think about. The notion of something living inside of your body is a universal and primal fear."  
"That it even took place in Somerville, too. Somerville and Cambridge-near Boston...my dad's hometown. Doubled the spooky on that shit."  
"Do you believe the story, Once-ler?"  
"Hell no. You think I'm stupid or something? It's just scary to think about, like all those stories. I spend a lot more time dicking around with 'em lately; the stories and the video games. I...I'm starting to feel a lot of stress, lately, doctor."  
"Why do you think that that is?"  
"It's the company and a bunch of other shit with my family. I didn't know it would be like this, Avery. I constantly feel like I'm being pulled in all sorts of directions. I want to do one thing, mom wants me to do another, the public wants this, M-a friend wants me to do that-all that shit. I can't take it, sometimes, Doctor Frost."  
"So you play those video games and read those stories to decompress and relax?"  
"Yeah, I guess you could say that." He leans back and Dr. Frost jots some things down in his notebook. "I'm not getting a lot of sleep, either."  
"Would that be because of the stress or...?"  
"Well, in part, yeah. That's not all of it. I get too caught up reading around or playing games, and I look out the window, and the sun is up, and I'm like "son of a bitch! It's morning already? Damnit! No sleep for me today...", y'know? Then, there's Naomi: I've not heard from her in a long time. Is she dead? Is she a prisoner? I know she's a Ranger, and Rangers do some serious shit-not saying other soldiers don't, just Rangers go hard into it."  
"Yes. I'm sure it's not quite the same as managing a multi-million dollar company, but I had a great deal of sleepless nights in college and graduate school." He looks back over his notes. "Now, you said that _Silent Hill 2_ is your favourite of the series?"  
"Yeah. What about it?"  
"What did you say that the protagonist's name was?" Once-ler looks at his feet. Like a child who had been caught stealing cookies before dinner, he says:  
"James." He looks up, his tone becoming more defensive. "Look here, that doesn't mean anything. James is a common name. Just because that was my dad's name doesn't mean that I like that game the most because of that. It's just a really, really good game."  
"I didn't say that it wasn't. I was just thinking that on a subconscious level, you favor that game over the others in the series because you feel that, even though the man in the game and your father are two different people, there was a tie between them because of their names being the same."  
"I don't give a fuck what the guy in the game is named. It's a kick-ass game. James Sunderland is nothing like my father, anyway. Dad had black hair, James has blond hair. Dad had green eyes, James has blue. Dad was an agent in the FBI, James is a clerk. I think I read that somewhere. They are not the same person, and I don't like you acting like it, doc." Anger has spread across his face. "Dad wouldn't have killed my mom, either. I don't know if I can say the same about her, but my dad would have never killed my mom."  
'Dad would have never killed my mom. I don't know what's in that, but I feel like there is something there.' Dr. Frost looks over at Once-ler, who was still fuming. 'He's pissed right now. I don't know if I should press this further. I risk him getting up and leaving if I do. His father is a very sensitive topic for him.'  
"What are you doing, Avery? Trying to work some sort of shrinky magic over there? Trying to think of some other smart-ass angle to come at me from?"  
"I want to ask you something about the game. I swear, it has nothing to do with your father." He crosses his arms and sits rigid, scowling.  
"Whatever."  
"When do you find out that James killed his wife?"  
"Late into the game-towards the end, at the hotel. There's a video in a safe there that you have to take to the room that he and Mary stayed in there and watch it on the VCR, and James remembers killing her."  
"The first time you played through the game, how did you feel when you found out that James killed his wife?" Once-ler studies Dr. Frost's face for a moment before replying. He lets out a heavy breath and eases back.  
"I was shocked. Sure, I played it years after it came out-I was fucking 11 when it came out-but no one told me that there was a twist on the end, there. All through the game, James is this nice guy. He is the nice guy. He tries to help all these people he doesn't even know while he's wandering around in a nightmare-town in search of his dead wife; even when it's out of his way. He helps Maria out-she's too afraid to be alone there, so he lets her tag along with him. He is nice to Eddie Dombrowski, even though that guy is a creepy weirdo and a bit of a coward. He talks Angela out of killing herself, for fuck's sake! He comes to Maria's rescue over and over again, he saves Angela and isn't mad at her when she goes off on him after the fight with that monster. He even tries to talk Eddie out of the fight, and feels bad when he kills him. He's this nice, great guy this whole time; the kind of guy you feel like you could trust with anything...and he's a fucking murderer." He looks down at his lap. "I remember I just sat there with the controller loose in my hands and my mouth open. I couldn't believe it. I had spent all this time watching this character develop, and that happens? He was evil the whole damn time? What the fuck, Konami!?"  
"You felt hurt."  
"No. It's just a game."  
"Once-ler."  
"Fine, alright. I felt hurt. Happy? I don't see what that means, though. Always trying to read things into stuff, Dr. Frost."  
"Don't you see what happened? James is a nice guy. James is the kind of guy you feel like you could trust with anything. Your idealized version of your father mixed in with the character in the game-even if you didn't realize it. When he turned out to be a killer, you were crestfallen."  
"Choose your next words very carefully, Avery." He says, his eyes narrowed.  
"I will not tell you that your father was not a great man, Once-ler. I won't even deny to you that he was a hero, but he was not a perfect person. He had his flaws, like everyone. I know it's hard. I know it hurts, but you have to realize this. Your father was not this golden god that you see him as. It doesn't mean that he was a bad person, it just means that he wasn't perfect."  
"Yeah. I know he wasn't perfect, doctor."  
"Do you? You fly into a rage if anyone says anything suggesting that he was anything less than Jesus Christ himself. He was just a man. A brave man, a just man, but a man." He wouldn't normally do this with his patients, but this man wasn't an ordinary patient. He'd seen him grow up; he knew this man.  
"...avery..." Avery, very gently, puts his hand on Once-ler's shoulder and looks him in the eyes. The younger man's light blue eyes are watered over with tears.  
"I've known you since you were a four-year-old little boy. I've seen you grow up. I know how largely your father's death looms in your life. I know losing your father was extremely traumatic for you. I know it happened when you were too little to even know the man beyond this all-powerful force for justice you saw him as. Once you realize that he was human, too-that he had his faults, you can begin to move past his death."  
"Doctor..."  
"You've been grieving for twenty-two, going on twenty-three years. Let go. I know it hurts, like I said, but you have to let go. Do what you have to do. Lock yourself in your office and sob for hours, yell, visit his grave, whatever. Just let out the pain you've been holding inside you all this time."  
"I don't know if-"  
"Your father would have wanted you to move on instead of live in the shadow of his death, Once-ler. You know this." He starts to stand, but he can't. Once-ler falls back to the black leather sofa, pulling his long, thin legs close to his body. He hides his face in his green-gloved hands, the fabric darkening with tears as he sobs. Loudly. A deep pain settles in his chest and Dr. Frost pats him on the side, handing him a box of tissues. He goes and sits across from him, letting the thneedman cry himself out; the boy, the man: broken on the couch. The child had finally let go of his father's hand.


	9. Chapter 9

Once-ler walks into the room, ear-buds in his ears. Loud bass and something else is audible. He pushes a couple buttons on his phone, and takes the ear-buds out.  
"You know, you're going to go deaf if you keep listening to music that loudly." He sits, a bemused look on his face.  
"Yeah, I know. Don't really care right now." he smirks. "Plus, it's metal, Avery. You've gotta listen to it loud."  
"With all that yelling, I would think that you'd need it turned down, actually." Once-ler waves his hand dismissively.  
"Meh." Avery ponders on something.  
"Why do you like metal, Once-ler? I've heard you play guitar-everyone's heard your Thneed jingle. I really wouldn't expect metal out of you."  
"Just because I don't play a type of music doesn't mean I don't like it. I just don't have a voice for metal, and I know it."  
"I can't really see you screaming a song, either."  
"It's not all screaming-plus, that's its own sub-genre. I mean, even though there is a difference between Johnathan Davis, Trent Reznor, Maynard James Keenan, and Marilyn Manson, they all have a sound about them. My voice is not made for that shit." He laughs. "I mean, imagine it: "_Come on step inside and you'll realize. Tell me what you need, tell me what to be. What's your vision? You'll see, what do you expect of me? I can't live that lie. Hate! I sing my words, I'm fucked at dealing with your life. Dead bodies every where. You really want me to be a good son, why? You make me feel like no one._" Sounded like shit, didn't it?" Dr. Frost sits across from Once-ler, keeping a straight face, despite what he'd just heard.  
'_The words to that song...does he even see it, himself?_' He straightens his tie. "It did sound odd, I do admit-but not terrible."  
"It's why I learned to play guitar. I wanted to be a rock star. I thought that I'd be really successful, but I just can't do it. Sure, I can play-but not that. Well, I can play metal, but I can't sing it."  
"You wanted to play guitar to be a rock-star?"  
"Yeah, that and everyone loves a guitar player. I'm not gonna knock pianists or drummers or bassists, but everyone loves a guitarist. A walking party." He sighs. "I don't know what it is about me; but I want everyone to like me. I was already popular, somewhat, at school-but I wanted more. I think I just wanted those cock-suckers that didn't like me for being a bastard son to like me. I thought that if I was a guitar player, they'd get that stick out of their asses and like me."  
"Did it work?"  
"Fuck no." He says, pouting. "Well, on some of 'em, but the snobbiest of them didn't budge from their ass-hattery." He shrugs. "There's just no pleasing some people." He leans back, resting his long legs on the coffee table in front of him. "I wanted to be all kinds of things when I was a little boy."  
"What all did you want to be?"  
"Well, when I was really little-like, four or five, I wanted to be a detective. I wanted to find missing people and solve crimes. I even had a little private eye costume I'd run around in. Granny Rosalie got it for me for Christmas when I was four. It was the best! There was this little, cheaply-made trench-coat and fedora, a pair of hand-cuffs, a detective badge, a toy gun, and a little note-pad. I'd run around the farm and look for mysteries to solve."  
"So, you didn't always want to be an inventor?"  
"Nope. Didn't really start think about my Thneed until I was in my late teens. When I was a tad older-around eight or so, I wanted to play in the NBA someday. I was going to be the next Shawn Bradley-except better. After that, like I said, I started wanting to be a rock-star. When I was about fourteen, I realized that it's really hard to become a rock-star and that, even if I did, I wouldn't have the freedom to play the music that I wanted to play; I'd have to conform to what my manager and the record label wanted me to play."  
"What did you want to be after that, Once-ler?"  
"Well, I was really good at the social sciences around that time. I learned a lot from Uncle Ubb, and took a few psychology, sociology, and anthropology classes that weren't Remedial. I was good at that shit. I wanted to go to college, then to grad school and be an Anthropologist. I felt like that would be really cool, and all the different cultures all around the world were really interesting to me."  
"Why didn't you? A smart boy like you who had attended Mt. Burgess could get into a good school." Once-ler blows and throws up his hands.  
"Why do you think I didn't go? Mama. Always laying into me, always berating me and making me feel like I can't do anything right. I was too afraid to even try to get in. I felt like I wasn't smart enough to go to college, let alone grad school. I didn't even have the nerve to take my ACT or SAT."  
"It seems like your mother's words and actions have had quite an impact on your life."  
"They have. Both of the things I'm afraid of are because of her."  
"Oh? I know about the rats; that you have Musophobia from her throwing that rat at you when you were a small boy, as well as locking you in the basement, but what else are you afraid of?"  
"Needles. I can't fucking stand a needle. Weird since I sew and knit, but I freak out at the sight of needles."  
"Why do you think that is?" He bites his lower lip and rubs his right arm.  
"I...I was told, a couple years ago, that after she'd been caught hitting me and dad brought me, Brett, and Chet back down from Boston when I was a baby, she started sticking pins in me. Sewing pins-like the kind used to fasten two pieces of material together while you sew them? Those kinds. Dad didn't notice them at first, because they were such small holes and she'd only stick me in places that weren't obvious: between my toes, the bends of my legs and arms, my scalp, the bottoms of my feet and palms of my hands...what got her caught, though..." He hangs his head, sighing. His voice is slightly strained as he speaks next. "She'd put a sewing needle inside me."  
"How do you mean?"  
"She...eventually, sticking me in my legs and arms and stuff like that wasn't enough for her. It didn't inflict enough pain in me for her...she...doctor, this is so hard to say."  
"It's okay, Once-ler. If you don't think you can, you don't have to."  
"...Doctor, she stuck a sewing pin up my urethra. It got caught in me...I had to go to the hospital and Dr. Huang had to get a fucking sewing needle out of my dick when I was a baby. Mom got away with it because Dr. Huang couldn't prove to Deputy Holloway that mom'd done that to me. She was always trying to do that, Dr. Huang."  
"Really?"  
"Oh, hell yeah. Dr. Charlie Huang was not a stupid woman by any means. She did that for all three of us; noticing all the bruises and broken bones we'd get through the year and noticed that there is no way that it could keep being "because boys play rough". Even farm boys like my big brothers wouldn't end up with that many fractures per month. She tried so many times to get Deputy Holloway to investigate. He never did."  
"That seems like a severe lapse in the correctional system in Hybee."  
"They never did anything about anything-well, unless it was extreme. Doctor, I know I've already asked this and I know you've already told me that I can, but I still feel like I have to ask: I can tell you anything, right?"  
"You know you can."  
"Avery...when I was 12, while I was home for summer holiday, mom kept me locked in the basement for a solid week."  
"Why did she do that, Once-ler?" He tries to keep his composure, fighting back tears.  
"I accidentally broke a vase that belonged to my great grandmother. I tried to tell mom, but she wouldn't listen to me. It was just an accident! I was sorry; but it didn't matter to her. She grabbed me by my shoulder and yanked me down the stairs. There was...she'd gotten some chains and a pair of handcuffs, somehow. She...doctor, she shackled me to the furnace by my wrists. Sometimes, I can still remember it all: the feeling of the dirt beneath my bare legs-I was in shorts and no top. I had a pair of wore-out canvas shoes, though. During the day it would get hot, and it would get hot fast. My skin was soaked in sweat. My shorts stuck to my thighs and caked dirt onto my legs. I was filthy. At night, it would get so cold...the sweat made it worse: I was a little wet from it, and that just made the cold that much worse. Rats crawled around me: I could feel them brushing up against my skin, hear them squeaking. I screamed when one chewed on my shoe. She just yelled at me to shut up."  
"How did you survive, Once-ler?"  
"She would bring me down food once or twice a day, and I would have a couple of bottles of water in there. She left me a bucket to...eh...do my business in, but getting my shorts and underware off with my hands bound like that was hard as hell, so I held my guts and pissed on myself a couple of times. I felt so filthy. When she saw the wet spot on my pants and could smell the piss on me, she beat me and called me disgusting. I was left down there for a few more hours. When I woke up, she came back down and let me go."  
"Once-ler, why didn't you tell anyone about that? That is an extreme level of child abuse. You could have died."  
"I was just so afraid, Avery." He whines, no longer able to hold back his emotions. "The things she told me that people would do to me if I told; I couldn't bear the thought of that being done to me."


	10. Chapter 10

"You know how my mom used to beat the shit out of me, Avery?" He says, leaning back against the couch, his hands resting on his chest and his fingers laced, the thumbs touching.  
"Yes, I do."  
"Know why she stopped?"  
"I would say it was because she got caught." Once-ler sits up and rests his hands on his lap.  
"True, but it's not quite that simple."  
"What happened?"  
"I was home for Summer Holiday after second grade. I was seven years old. Up until that point, it was a pretty bitchin' summer for me. I got to go swimming, stayed up all night, I even got a bicycle, for fuck's sake!" He's smiling.  
"That certainly does sound better than the other times you were home as a boy."  
"Best part was, doc, that mom hadn't hit me all summer. I liked that. I was lying in my bed one night, looking up at the ceiling. I remember how happy and excited I felt. Life was pretty good right then; mom was going to let Ubb take Marietta, Clementine, Brett, Chet, and me to the beach the next day. My bedroom window was open, and I remember how nice the night air felt against my skin and the scent of the grass." Dr. Frost knew what he was doing, trying to focus on the positive part of this memory. "Then, my bedroom door opened." His tone has gone flat. "Guess who?"  
"What did your mother do to you?"  
"I still don't understand it. I didn't do anything. I was lying in bed trying to sleep, being quiet, even. The light in the hallway illuminated her from behind, and I could see that she had that belt in her hand. I sat up in bed." Sadness now fills his voice. "I asked her what was wrong: "What's wrong, mommy?" She didn't say dick, just walked over to me. I knew that the shit was about to hit the fan, and I tried to get up and run. She grabbed my arm. I felt it break. She broke my arm, doctor. Just a green-stick, but it broke. I screamed like fuck and she threw me to the ground. I was only wearing a pair of red shorts-my favourite ones when I was a kid. She hit me across my bare chest with that damn belt. It was dry, thank god, but she hit me with it; my chest and arms, since I held them up to try to protect myself. You can imagine that only made my broke arm feel that much better. It was my right arm, too. I was screaming, and Ubb came up there to stop her."  
"Did he stop her?"  
"I wish." he says, blowing.  
"Why didn't he? It sounds, from all your previous accounts, that your uncle Ubb cared a great deal for you."  
"It was more a couldn't than didn't, Avery. He yelled at her: "Just what in the crimson fuck are you doing, Isabella!? Get off of him! What is the matter with you!?" He tried to get her off me. Now, you probably know, since my family doesn't exactly hide, that my mom is a shit-load taller than my uncle."  
"What happened?"  
"She threw him off her, threw him back. She told him to fuck off. He didn't. He came back at her again. I was lying in the floor. I don't know why I didn't run when I had the chance. She threw him off her again and got him in the face with the belt, herself. She screamed at him: "Am I going to have to beat you down, too, Ubb? Stay out of this; he ain't your kid." He got back up again and ran at her as hard as he could. I could tell he was intent on fucking her shit up. She saw this, too, and kicked him into the wall. He was out cold. No one could help me. No one would come save me. She turned around to face me, then. I could see half of her face in the hall light. She looked fucking insane, looked like a monster."  
"Once-ler, if you'd like to stop talking about this, you can. I can't imagine how painful this memory must be for you."  
"I can't stop, Dr. Frost. I need to talk about this." He clears his throat and takes a drink of water. "She turned back around at me and I could see the sneer on her face. I tried to crawl away backwards on a broken arm. She walked over to me. Not ran. There wasn't any haste in the way she walked up to me, like she was walking slow like that on purpose. She raised that belt up again, and beat the fuck out of me. I don't know how many times she hit me with it. Then, she just dropped it to the floor."  
"Was she done?"  
"Nope. I was lying there, trembling, crying, and she picked me up by my hair and arm-left one, this time. She told me to stand up. I don't know why I did, but I did. She just stood there, looking at me for a while, looking me over. Then, out of nowhere, she slammed me, by the side of my head, into the fucking wall. It got a dent in it; that's how hard she slammed me into it. I was dizzy when I got back up, on my hands and knees. The room was spinning around, and I couldn't hear. She kicked me. Kicked me right in the ribs. It knocked me onto my back and took all my breath away. I gasped in, trying to breathe-trying not to suffocate. She grabbed me by my right arm again and dragged me a little ways; towards my closet. This time, the arm broke a lot worse. Not through my skin, but an open break. I was sobbing and could barely think to say anything that would make any sense, but I tried to ask her why she was doing this to me. Didn't say anything. The entire time she beat me, she didn't say anything to me. She grabbed me by my face and shoved me backwards into the closet in my bedroom. Everything went blurry and the back of my head felt wet. I was thrown to the ground and everything just started to fade away; just pain and confusion as she kept kicking me. All over my body. I was on my side, sort of. My back, ribs, arms, legs...and my head. Everything went black when she kicked my head. I saw it coming, right at my face."  
'Damn.' Dr. Frost keeps calm and says: "What happened after that, Once-ler? After you blacked out?" He shakes his head.  
"I don't know, exactly. I guess Ubb came to and stopped her or something. That, or Grizelda came up there and put a stop to that bullshit herself. Mom might can take Ubb, but Grizelda will kick her scrawny, blond ass until her head falls off." He sighs and leans back. "I was in a coma for four months. My own mother beat me into a fucking coma when I was seven years old." He hangs his head, pain in his words. "I came to in a hospital room. At first, I didn't know where I was. I was confused. Why wasn't I in my room? Then I remembered what happened to me." He wipes his eyes. "My eighth birthday came and went, with me in a coma. I went in seven and came out eight. That, in itself, was hard for me to grasp. School had started back up. I had cards from my classmates, from my family-except mom."  
"Even after all that, she neglected you?"  
"Nope. Nut-house. I was hurt a lot more badly than I thought at the time. Broke 8 ribs, my right shoulder and arm. While she was kicking me, she broke the other arm and my left leg. My skull had two fractures in it. There was a shit-load of internal bleeding, as I'm sure you could imagine, and internal damage. She broke my body. Emergency guardianship was granted to Ubb, and he authorized them to give me the surgeries I needed, or I'd be dead right now. The surgeon was good; can't hardly see the scars on my belly and chest where I had to be cut open. It was a good thing I was already fucking comatose; but they still put me under."  
"Where was your mother?" Once-ler knits his brows and tilts his head to the side.  
"Isn't it obvious? Like I said, in the nut-house. When the paramedics showed up to take me away, there was no way in hell she could say that it was an accident. "So, you're saying that your son fell out of bed and broke his ribs, shoulder, both arms, his left leg, and skull? That must've been one a hell of a fall." Not likely. She was arrested and went to trial. They used my x-rays and photos of the wounds as evidence, as well as pictures of the wall where she broke it with my body, and the closet door splintered a bit for the same reason. It's a wonder she didn't break my fucking spine with the force she used to shove me into the closet door. Since she did what she did, it was pretty easy to plead insanity. She was sent to a mental institution for about a year, then they let her out. She rarely hit us again."  
"I figured legal action must've been taken against her, but I didn't realize that she had hurt you as badly as she did. She nearly killed you. That must've been very traumatic for you, Once-ler. How does what she did make you feel?" He blows and lies back.  
"You gotta ask it like that? I mean, is it in the shrink handbook, or something: "When the patient tells you shit, be all "how does that make you feel" at them"." He lets out an annoyed groan. "It felt weird as hell. The beating was the most terrifying and confusing thing I'd ever been through. I still don't know why she did that to me. I didn't do anything. I was lying in bed, what the fuck was the matter with her that she did that to me?" He sits up. "It was vicious, cruel, and unwarranted. I try not to think about it: to wonder why she hit me. It'll drive me crazy if I try to figure out why, and I know that. I just try to tell myself it was a psychotic episode, like Ubb told me, but I don't really know. Does she really hate me that much that she tried to beat me to death when I was seven? That had to be her goal. I know she wasn't sitting around thinking: "_Know what'd be a great way to kill an evening? How about I go beat Oncie into a fucking coma! That'd be rad._" Why did she even keep me if she hated me that much? Why didn't she just give me up for adoption or something? Is that why she was happy to leave me at Mt. Burgess; she didn't want me?" He breaks down, crying softly. "I was just a little kid and she beat me down like I was a grown man. To me, she stole those four months from me, stole my eighth birthday from me. Why did she hate me like that? People thought I was a cute kid; I'm not being an arrogant dick or anything, but people thought I was adorable and liked me. The nurses called me "The Bruised Angel" while I was in that coma. They couldn't figure out why she beat me, either."  
"I believe your uncle to be right, to some degree, about that beating being due to a psychotic episode. However, that does not explain all of the prior incidents of abuse. I'm thinking of trying to get in touch with the Institution at which she stayed and obtaining her records. I am really curious to see what the psychiatrist there ascertained from his meetings with her."  
"That's just the beating, itself. The lost time fucked with me, too. I mean, I lost four months. July 12, 1998 came and went, and I was lying in a bed, dead to the world. Did anyone even visit me? Did anyone give a shit beyond sending me those "Get Well Soon!" cards and a couple birthday cards from some kids I went to school with and my family? I remember waking up disoriented and seeing the damn cards and a stuffed bear on the table beside me."  
"Tell me more about when you woke up."  
"Like I said, I was disoriented. Where was I? Then I realized I was in the hospital. Then I wondered why, and remembered. I didn't cry. I didn't yell. I just sat there, trying to take it all in. My mom beat the living fuck out of me. Then I looked over at the cards. At first, all I saw was the "Get Well Soon!" cards...then I noticed birthday cards. I thought: "Birthday cards? My birthday's not for another month..." I went into that coma June 20th. Then, I saw the date on the wall-the nurses always did that; wrote the date, who my doctor would be that day, my nurse, attendant-all that. Thursday, October 16, 1998. October the fucking sixteenth. It broke my brain for a second. It gnawed at me, the date. It's like my brain didn't want to process that. No, fuck you whiteboard. It's June, not October. Then I noticed the black cats and pumpkins and witches and shit stuck on the wall. Halloween decorations. I couldn't deny it, then. No one puts up Halloween decorations in June. It all sank in. I had missed my birthday; I had missed turning eight. I missed going back to classes-missed the rush of everyone returning from Summer Holiday. I was going to be in Third Grade. Everyone would be back in full swing by then-by October. I'd be behind in a place I really couldn't afford to be behind at." He sighs. "Then the tears started. I wasn't crying out loud or anything, but there were tears. Everyone at school would notice that I was back. They probably all knew why I wasn't back in August like the rest of them. I didn't know if I could face that. "Struthers's mom beat him into a coma, I heard. That's why he's not here.", " I heard it made him retarded or something.", "His mama must really hate him to beat him like that.". I was already ashamed and embarrassed, and I hadn't even returned."  
"How was it for you when you returned?" He looks up, slight confusion on his face.  
"Actually, better than I had expected. Sure, they noticed at first, and I did hear whispers and saw them pointing, but that stopped in a couple weeks. I guess they figured I'd been through enough already. Sure, I'd get dumbassed questions sometimes, but that wasn't so bad."  
"What kind of questions would they ask you, Once-ler?"  
"What's it like to be in a coma?, Did you have dreams in your coma, like when you're asleep?, Did it hurt while you were in a coma?, Did you know anything that was going on while you were in a coma? Could you feel anything in your coma? Could you hear? Those were the okay questions, and I really expected them. There were others, too, that I didn't like answering. How did you go to the bathroom while you were in the coma? You couldn't wake up. They put a catheter up me and used a bed-pan. That's how, asshole. How did you eat while you were in a coma? You couldn't wake up to eat. How come you didn't starve? Feeding tube, I guess. I didn't really ask about the fucking logistics of my daily care while I was in the coma."  
"They were eight years old, too, Once-ler. You were probably the only person they had met who had been in a coma. They were curious. Sure, it wasn't very polite for them to ask you questions like that, but they were little kids. They didn't know it was impolite to ask you about being a coma. They probably didn't even grasp the full severity of your injuries."  
"I know that, it just bothered me is all." His tone becomes more relaxed. "Academically? Most of the professors cut me some slack that year-for the fall-winter semester. Spring-summer, I was expected to be caught up. Of course, Professor Grubbs didn't cut me any slack, but I didn't expect that. He was a little less of a dick to me that year, though he did say "Did you sustain brain damage while you were in that coma, Mister Struthers?" in March like an ass-clown. I was back in time for basketball season, so that made me happy."  
"I imagine so."  
"Coach let me play, but I knew he would. He didn't want to at first, I remember. He was afraid I'd get hurt again, where I'd just come out of a coma not too long before that, but he later figured he'd let me play, just told me to "take it easy". I did; I mean, it's not like Year Three boy's basketball is the fucking NBA. I didn't have to be fucking perfect; people really weren't watching like they were Years Nine through Twelve."  
"I don't understand how Mt. Burgess's basketball system worked. Was there a team for each year or...?"  
"Nah. It went Years One through Three, Years Four through Six, Years Seven and Eight, and Years Nine through Twelve. Our Years Nine through Twelve was the team that played other schools." He smiles, wistfully. "You know, before this, basketball was the only thing that made it even seem like mom was even a little proud of me. She would actually come to some of my games. I...I would feel so proud of myself when I'd look up there and see her sitting in the stands, watching me." He looks up, thinking. "In fact, the only time I remember her acting disappointed in me back then was when I was in Year Ten and I helped an opposing player back up. He slipped. Slipped hard; skidded down the court, right into the pole. I was pretty near to him-I'd be a dick if I didn't help him up. I'd want someone to do the same for me, anyway."  
"Why would she be upset at you for showing good sportsmanship?"  
"She saw it as a "stupid move" to help an opponent back up; like I should have just let him lay there like that. Kid was all tweet-tweet when I helped him back up. He got took out of the game."  
"You do know that you did the right thing, right?"  
"Yeah. I knew it then, too, it just hurt me that mom was mad at me for doing what was right." He looks up. "Well...that's all I have to say about being beat into a coma, and we're out of time for today. I'll see you next week, doctor." He stands and leaves, actually in a somewhat good mood.


	11. Chapter 11

"My family has been made of problems-even before I was born. I know, I've told you about my ma's dad being an abusive fuck-face-dad's parents were cool folks. Well, there was other shit, too."  
"Oh?"  
"Well, there's my Cousin Marietta. She's actually Uncle Ubb and Aunt Grizelda's eleventh child. The ten before her died; one of SIDS, two still-born, the rest miscarried. That's why Aunt Grizelda gave her the middle name "Kiseki". She says it means "Miracle". She's a translator, you know-Japanese-Mandarin-French-English. I wish I could speak another language. That'd be cool."  
"You could always learn. There's plenty of programs out there that can teach you."  
"Eh, too busy to be arsed with it." He manages to find his train of thought. "Well, my brothers were born different than me. They were C-sectioned. When Dr. Huang pulled 'em out of her, they were pale and limp. Almost couldn't find a pulse. They were so close to death, had to be put in those thingies they put sick babies in."  
"Neo-natal ICU."  
"Yeah, that." He nods. "Anyway, they had to stay in those boxes for a couple weeks, tubes and shit running in and out of them. It's a hard thing to think about, doc. Teeny tiny babies hooked up to all sorts of machines, barely clinging to life. My family's not very religious at all, but my uncle told me that dad prayed-actually, factually prayed in the hospital chapel for them to survive. Ma didn't come out of the operation so well, either. Goofed a bit, nicked something they shouldn't. Barely stopped the bleeding, ran a transfusion. She was in the hospital almost as long as they were."  
"What about you? Were there any complications with your birth?"  
"Nope. I was born pink, crying, and squirming-perfectly healthy baby boy. For some damned reason, ma was pissed at me over being born. I think she was either mad about the whole natural child-birth thing, or didn't want me to be a boy...she didn't take care of me when I was an infant, doctor."  
"Oh..."  
"Brett and Chet were three years old; she didn't take care of them either. I think I should give a little back-ground around me being born and being a baby, or some of what I'm about to say won't make any sense."  
"Go ahead, Once-ler."  
"Well, like every single older sibling ever, they were jealous of me when I was first born. I was a noisy, unwelcome new presence in the house. They had to be quiet so I could sleep, and I'd cry late at night and wake them up. It pissed them off. Dad took me in his arms one day and had the two of them sit to either side of us. I was awake and quiet, so it was a good time to talk to them regarding the little crying machine they had to call their brother. He told them that they were big brothers, now. Told them that they had a special mission-they had to look after me and take care of me. He told them that I'd have to be able to turn to them when I couldn't turn to him or mom. He told them that I'd look up to them; they'd be like adults because they were older than me, but still like to play, like a kid. They said that it made them feel special and important when dad told them that, and it changed their minds about me."  
"That was a wise move on his part. He put a positive spin on the change."  
"They started helping dad out with me-things that were safe for a couple three year olds to do-like, they didn't make my bottles or anything; might scald themselves or me on the formula. He let them help out with stuff like what I'd be wearing that day, help a little with bathing me, supervised them while they took turns holding me, shit like that." He sits up. "Well, mom pretended to have postpartum depression so she could weasel her way out of doing anything to take care of me, so when dad was home, he took care of me. Problem was, he was at work most of the day-FBI and all-so Brett and Chet took care of me as best they could, trying to remember what dad taught them. Mostly, I laid around starving and filthy all day. She just plain sucked. What part of someone's brain has to be that fucked up that they refuse to care for their own baby?"  
"Some women lack a maternal instinct."  
"But she took care of Brett and Chet when they were babies. It had to be me, had to be something about me she didn't like. I mean, she gave me this fucked up first name. What the hell even is this?" He chuckles. "Makes me think of "Major Shake" from _Aqua Teen Hunger Force_."  
"Who?"  
"Eh, the show's about these food products and their adventures. There's a ball of meat named Meatwad, a box of french-fries that is also a wizard named Frylock, and a milk-shake named Master Shake. They live next to this fat dude named Carl who has an above-ground pool and a car he calls "2Wycked". In one episode, one of the inept set of villains, the Plutonians, "clone" Master Shake in a piss-poor manner. They send "Major Shake" down, who talks about how shitty his situation is." He chuckles. "He's got a fuckin' boom-box sticking out of his side. It works, even. What I'm saying is that they have people names, and like Major Shake having the boom-box in his side and those gimped-up hands, my name is some weird mess."  
"I admit, your name is an odd one, but I don't think your mother named you that out of spite, Once-ler."  
"Brett's full name is Brett Ashley Struthers, Chet's is Chet Aubrey Struthers, and I'm Once-ler Marley Struthers. We sure did score big on that. Dad stuck "Marley" in there for my middle name since he was a big Bob Marley fan and he wanted to throw me a bone, there. Brett kicked a kid in the nuts for calling him Ashley, once. Didn't say a word, just kicked. No one called him Ashley after that."  
"I know you like to, so go ahead. Vent. Tell me more about her."  
"She's always gotta be the biggest ball-buster in the world to the three of us. Chet can dance. Man, can he dance, like he's Fred Astair or something. Ma called him a faggot for it. He never danced in front of anyone ever again, but I'd hear him dancing in his room, and I'd see him sneak off to this dance school in my home-town "Joanna's School of Dance". Brett can write really well. Like, he should be published, I think. He won a contest at school with a narrative he wrote about this guy who had...um...DID-that thing that's sort of like schizophrenia."  
"Yes, I know what DID is."  
"When mom found out that he won a contest with something he had written, she just remarked: "Oh. Brett can read? There's something I didn't know." She destroyed his self-confidence and his pride with that. She's always called me a flat-out failure, a sissy, a pansy, a candy-ass. When I took up knitting, she...um...questioned whether or not I even have a dick. She thinks I forgot. I'm just waiting, biding my time. Then, when the bitch least expects it, I'm yanking the rug out from under her. Ha! Fuck you, asshole." He fidgets, anxiously. "I know I can tell you anything, right?"  
"That's right."  
"And nothing bad will happen, right?"  
"As long as you aren't a danger to yourself or anyone else."  
"When I was..." He takes a deep breath, pulling his long, thin legs up to his body, wrapping his arms around them. "When I was around 13, mom decided to fuck with me harder than she ever had before. I was home for Christmas holiday. Everyone else was asleep, and I got up to piss and get a glass of water-dry heat in there; burned my throat."  
"Go on."  
"She was sitting in the living room...in total darkness, no less. Tree was off, TV was off, not a single light lit in there. Pitch and silent. I come out of the bathroom and walk into the kitchen for my water, and I hear her call to me. It was barely a mutter, but in the quiet of dead winter, I could hear her. I flinched, dropping the glass to the floor. It broke and I thought that it would most certainly be my ass for that, but she had other plans." He shudders. "She had me come in there with her-sit on the love-seat. I fumbled over to it-she wouldn't let me turn on a light; said it's always best when the light is out, so already I was a little freaked out. I sat down, and she decided to tell me something."  
"I'm beginning to think that your mother has some sort of psychosis."  
"She lit up one of those damn cigarettes of hers and started to tell me a wonderful little story regarding my infancy."  
"What did she tell you?"  
"She told me, with this weird, almost cheer tone to her voice, that she used to think about killing me a lot in the beginning. She said, in such a blithe tone, that she'd stare down at me in my crib and think about how easy it would be to snap my neck, how easy it would be to strangle me: "I bet I'd only have to use one hand", she said. I couldn't see dick aside from the cherry on that cigarette, but I swear to god, I could see her sneer at me. She told me that she started thinking of more and more brutal ways to kill me; pulling me out of my crib and breaking me against the floor, busting my skull open while the soft-spots were still there...then she moved to more elaborate plans on killing me. She talked about taking me out to the shed and crushing my limbs with a hammer and leaving me in the weeds behind our house...about burning me alive in the furnace in the basement...putting me in the old hope-chest in the attic and letting me die in there...taking me deep into the fields and tearing me apart with fucking shears to make it look like wild animals got at me...burying me alive in the basement...cutting my arms and legs open and leaving me down there for the rats." he wraps his arms a little tighter around his legs. "The way she talked about it, the tone she used...it was the same way that The Leviathan talked about the murders she'd committed. Of course, I don't think she could do that to me, now. It's a lot harder to do that shit to a six-and-a-half foot tall man than it is to a baby."  
"Still, that had to be very unnerving for you. How did it make you feel?"  
"How do you think it made me feel, doc? Sick. Freaked-out. Afraid. She's gotta be bat-shit mad, right? I mean, who the hell thinks of doing that to their own child?"  
"As I've said earlier, I believe your mother to have some form of psychosis. It's the only real explanation."  
"You remember me saying how she was a drunk when I was a kid?"  
"Yes."  
"Well, she'd buy entire fucking kegs of beer, drink them, drink vodka right out of the bottle, pass out, puke on the floor. While we were at school-I was still in Kindergarten then, she'd go out to the bar...until they kicked her out and permabanned her-for drinking right out of the tap when the bar-tender had his back turned, puking on floor, and trying to fight several employees when they took her car keys. She left us a note: "Trying to sneak back into Joe-Jack's. Don't wait up. I left a can of gravy." A lot of fuckin' good that does us. We couldn't cook the gravy, and even if we could, it's no kind of meal. When she was home, she'd get plastered and try to do crazy shit-keg-stands, fuckin' keg flips. Those sure did turn out nice. Broke a lot of our furniture doing that. Magic drunk immunity, so she never broke herself doing that."  
"How did the three of you not get taken away by the state?"  
"I don't know. I mean, we kept our mouths shut about what was going on at home, but you'd have to be an idiot to not see that the three of us were starving to death. It was a hard time, doctor. Finding mom passed out in the bathroom floor in a puddle of her own puke. It was the only time she was "nice" to me, if you could call that crazy shit she'd do "nice". She would rub my face...and sometimes, my body...and tell me what a "pretty" boy I was. Like, never my dick or nothing, just down my chest. My mom didn't touch me. She'd grab my cheeks and look at me, in the eyes. She'd say shit about how I look like my daddy, slurred all to hell, and then she'd try to play with me. I was five. She'd grab me by my wrists and swing me around, because that's all kinds of safe, right there." He sits back, letting his feet rest against the dark marble floor. "Ubb caught her. He'd not been by in a while. We looked about starved to death to him, and the house was a mess. He told her: "Look at this place, Isabella! It smells like a damn brewery in here! A dog wouldn't even take a crap in here!" He moved in the next day and that was the end to mom being a drunk all the time...well, almost. He took everything out of the wetbar and burned it, so she started drinking mouth wash, cologne, perfume. She ended up going to the hospital over that shit. They detoxed her ass in there. I still don't know how the hell she didn't get alcohol poisoning and die."  
"Did your mother get any better after she stopped being an alcoholic?"  
"Fuck no. When I was around ten or so, she started seeing and married this ass-face named Clayton Taylor. He was a redneck motherfucker from hell. My brothers are country boys, farm boys-there's a difference. He wore those stupid fucking wife-beaters all the time, cowboy boots of all things, and-this was the best part-had a mowhawk. I'm not shitting you on that, Avery. He was a shit-kicking, homophobic, racist, red-neck dick."  
"It sounds like he certainly left an impression on you, Once-ler."  
"He did. I think that I should note that mom had been dry for five years until she got with that fuck-face. Pabst and Buds. Dear God, piss-water beer. Even when it isn't skunked it tastes like re-cooled ass. We moved in with that turd-sandwich in his trailer in Shady Pines. Went from a six-room farm-house to a two room trailer. Hell of an upgrade, right there. Right off, he was happy about us moving in, because he had to give up his drinkin' room "for your little bastards"...I know he didn't know we literally were, but that got under my skin. I hate being called a bastard. Pisses me off so very, very much. Sure-fire way for me to kick you right-straight in the 'nads."  
"I can see how it would upset you."  
"It was a tiny room...we could only get one bed in there. One bed for three boys; two thirteen year olds and a ten year old. It was over the summer, so I was home. I actually wanted to stay on campus that summer. They have a pool, cable, air-conditioning, and no one to call me names, kick my ass, insult me, and make me and my brothers share a bed. Mom never stood up for us and I honestly don't know why I thought, even for a fucking second, that she would. He called Brett and Chet "retards", "dumbasses", "idiots", and could never tell them apart, and gave zero fucks about that, anyway...until something came up."  
"What came up?"  
"They were thirteen, Dr. Frost. They already liked girls at that age-fuck, I already liked girls. Boys always have and always will try to do things to impress the girl they like. You see, Phish was "gothic". Brett went into this weird "goth" phase. Stole mom's eyeliner, coloured his nails black with a sharpie...tried to pierce his own tongue in the bathroom. Ended up taking a little trip to the hospital for that adventure. Blood everywhere. Brett became just "race traitor", but Chet got...um...I really don't like saying this word-"  
"It's okay; I know what word he said."  
"Well, he used that word a shitton. About Chet liking black girls, and about his affinity for R&B music. I don't understand racism, doc. People are just people-one race isn't set to be any one way. Tammi was in the gifted program and took all the AP and College-level Science classes she could. Into Micorbiology, Viruology, and Genetics. She ended up growing some sort of fucking "super-virus" in 10th grade that the government bought from her, but Clayton acted like Tammi was...um..."  
"I understand. A racist stereotype."  
"I got it even better. He resolved to call me "queer", "fag", "mary", "homo". Accused me of being gay a lot. I don't got shit against homosexuals-that's their business, but no one likes to be called something they're not, and no one likes to be insulted, regardless of the nature of the insult. He called me a "pussy" a lot, too, because I was "softer" than my brothers. Ass-face didn't know about my boxing and basketball playing. Sure, Brett played football-mostly because he was expected to, and Chet was fond of playing baseball, but liked track more, and there was the secret dancing."  
"He likely felt threatened by the three of you because you were the sons of another man."  
"Yeah, you're probably right. Then there were the health problems. Brett's got epilepsy and Chet's diabetic. He said they had those problems because "they weren't even smart enough to be born right, so now they had those bullshit problems". Then, and this pisses me off the most, Avery, is she fucking marries that shit-bag. She wouldn't marry dad, but she marries that douche-bag? Mom, essentially, kicks Ubb, Grizelda, Marietta, and Clementine out-they move back to a penthouse in Idabena. Closer to Uncle Ubb and Aunt Grizelda's work, anyway. We move back in with Captian Ass-monkey, back into our house instead of that shitty-shit trailer."  
"Go on."  
"Well, I already said he got mom back drinkin', so that was just fucking fantastic on its own...but, there was something else he got her doing again."  
"What was that?"  
"She started hitting us again. She hadn't laid a hand on any of us in three years-not since she beat me into a four-month-long coma-but he got her up doing that again. He hit us, too, of course. I hated being home. I really did. It wasn't much better at school. Sure, nothing changed at school, but I worried about Brett and Chet all the time. I worried about how badly they were being beaten; if they had gotten to eat that day? That week?" He hangs his head. "Doctor, we were, essentially, orphans. Clayton wouldn't get food for us. He never bought any groceries; he and mom always ate out and didn't get us any food because Clayton didn't want to "spend his money on those little shit-stains of" mom's, because "we "ain't"his boys". In order to feed ourselves, we had to find work. As little boys, we had to work to provide for ourselves. Most of the year, I was at Burgess, so I was good, but Brett and Chet weren't. The farm wasn't going so well, then, but the two of them got work as stable-boys at another horse farm, and worked at a dairy farm, too. When I was home, I worked at the same horse farm and...I'm not going to lie; I had a horse growing up." he laughs. "I was probably the only kid in the world that had a pony and wasn't happy."  
"You had a horse growing up?"  
"Yup. Like all the horses we raised, it was a Saddle-bred. He had almost blond fur-looked a little like a palomino, to tell the truth. During the school year, I started taking equine science classes and practiced a lot with the school's horses. When I would be home, I'd enter competitions with Greg-that was my horse's name-for money. I'm actually a pretty good rider. I didn't race-too damn tall to be a jockey and I don't like the notion of hitting the horse. Not a fan of animal abuse. I did that dressage shit. I won the junior division a lot."  
"What happened with that?"  
"It went pretty well. I made enough money to help my brothers enough for them to sock some of it back away for when I was at school...then Clayton wanted to be a dick. He sold my horse. He sold all the horses, bought that stupid fucking RV and blew the rest gambling and drinking. That's what ruined our farm. Couldn't sell Melvin; why we still have him."  
"I see that he is no longer with your mother, and she doesn't seem to have the last name "Taylor" any more. What happened there?"  
"Ubb. Uncle Ubb saving the motherfucking day, again. We didn't really see him for a while; he oversaw all the schizophrenic patients in Arbordale-the mental asylum in Idabena. He was busy with that shit a lot. I'm not talking your safe, harmless kooks, either. I mean the face-eaters. Those folks. He finally came around and saw the bruises. He dealt with things; got the police involved. Clayton got his ass taken off to jail, mom divorced him and took back "Struthers", and that was that. Took five damn years, but it ended. We were rid of that asshole." Dr. Frost puzzles on something.


	12. Chapter 12

He sits across from Dr. Frost in the dimly-lit room, reclining on the black leather couch. Dr. Frost studies him; even in the dim light, he could see dark circles under the boy's eyes and he looked pale and sallow.  
"Once-ler, are you feeling okay? You don't look so good."  
"Well, you're looking nice today, too, Avery." He says, his voice weak. He lies down. "I'm not feeling well, Dr. Frost."  
"What's been going on? Do you have a virus? A cold?"  
"No...I wish it was that."  
"What is it, then?" He sighs.  
"I've been sick like this for a while. It started when I was around seventeen. It wasn't so bad then; couldn't really notice it. I couldn't gain weight. No matter what I did, I couldn't gain weight. I was stuck at 141 lbs. Six and a half feet tall and one-hundred forty-one pounds...underweight."  
"You say "was". What has happened, Once-ler?"  
"It started late last year, but this past month, it's gone nuts. I'm not just not gaining weight, I'm losing weight. I'm 126 pounds, now." His voice is pregnant with worry. "My bones jut through my skin...every time I see myself naked, I'm a little more disgusted. I look like a damn skeleton...My hips stick out, my ribs stick out, my spine and shoulder-blades stick out-all of it. I'm getting weaker, too, and am having a hard time keeping awake."  
"Have you seen a doctor?"  
"Yes. I've been seeing a staff of specialists since this year started. They've taken up residency in my factory-mansion-I can't let the press find out that I'm sick, especially sick like this. Fuckin' tabloids will say that I've got AIDs or am on crack or something. They've done blood-work. Fuck, have they done blood-work. The gloves do a good job of hiding the bruises on my arms where they test my blood every week. Three-to-five tubes each time." His tone becomes distant. "They've tested my CSF, too. That hurt like fuck; at least they knocked me out for the marrow. It's not a small needle, either. When Dr. Jones came in there with that damn thing, I thought: "Oh, boy! A cartoon-like needle! I look forward to being stuck with that son of a bitch!". The sharp is as thick as a damn pencil-lead. I understand that the needle used for my marrow was a lot thicker-I mean, they have to go all the way through skin, fat, muscle, and break through my bone. They took it from my left thigh. Hurt for weeks after."  
"Have they found anything promising? Could it be parasites? Thyroid?" His cheeks flush.  
"They...they, uh...looked in my...my guts...with a camera and tested samples of...you know. No parasites. The camera; I hated that. Why couldn't they knock me out before they shoved a camera up my ass? Did I really have to be awake for that? Sure, it only hurt some, but I felt so embarrassed; even though they did have me covered up. I mean, it wasn't like I was lying there stark and spread-eagle, but still. I think if it was my thyroid, the blood tests'd show something."  
"Just how many doctors do you have under your employ, if you don't mind my asking?"  
"Eh, it's fine. I've got four: Dr. Winchester, Dr. Jones, Dr. Kiyomizu, and Dr. Nourmohammadi. Dr. Winchester works with my blood. Dr. Jones is a neurologist. Dr. Kiyomizu is my guts doctor. Dr. Nourmohammadi works with my endocrine system." He looks over at Dr. Frost. "Avery, there's something worrying me."  
"What would that be, Once-ler?"  
"This coming Thursday, I've got to have a procedure. They are doing some sort of exploratory thing; going to knock me out and use a teeny-tiny camera and some sort of x-ray thing and get around inside my veins or spine or something. I have to be out for that-they said if I moved around, I might be paralyzed or even die, and that what they're doing will hurt a lot, and if I'm awake...man." His tone changes. "I'm worried about how I'll keep this hidden. You said it yourself; I don't look so good. I've seen it. I know I'm getting pale and stuff. People will see that. They'll wonder why I'm getting so thin and pale and all that. I don't like the notion of wearing make-up, but my PR people are telling me if I want to keep this secret, I'm going to have to have my skin darkened back to the colour it's supposed to be and to hide the dark circles under my eyes. They want to put padding between me and my clothes so people can't tell how much weight I've lost, either. Most of all, they say I should stay out of the public eye as much as possible to keep people from seeing that I'm getting sick." He sits up and looks at his feet. "...if the investors find out I'm sick, they will lose all faith in my company. I'll probably be thrown out and have my own company taken from me by one of my own employees." His shoulders move, his hands are balled into fists and resting, hard, against his knees. His voice trembles. "I...I can barely eat any more. Dr. Kiyomizu says that my stomach has shrunk down, and that's why I keep getting sick when I eat-I'm eating too much for my body to handle. They've suggested I bring in a nutritionist. I've fainted more than a couple times..." He looks up. "Doctor, there are days that Brett or Chet have to help me walk around my own damn home. I can't bathe myself; someone has to help me." He looks at the floor. "And Naomi's getting ready to come home."  
"Well, that's nice to know."  
"I'm scared for her to find out. I don't want her to worry-she's got enough on her plate as it is."


	13. Chapter 13

"I think today we should delve into why you are afraid of rats, and why you keep having that nightmare." Once-ler's mouth draws.  
"How about we don't and say we did?"  
"You know we can't do that, and you know that we need to talk about this. It will never get better unless we do." He sighs and groans loudly, his arms hanging loosely at his sides and his eyes rolled back.  
"Damn, fine! What first, master?"  
"Once-ler, don't be like that."  
"Okay." He rolls his eyes. "What would you like to talk about first, Doctor Frost?" he says in a rather pissy tone.  
"I think we should try to discover the root of your fear of rats, first. It may give us some insight into the source of the nightmare." He sits back, his arms crossed.  
"They are gross, disease-carrying, face-eating little monsters. Why shouldn't I be afraid of them?"  
"Are you frightened of mice?"  
"No. Why should I be? Mice are cute. Rats are gross."  
"Rats are just like big mice. Think of them that way."  
"You think of them that way. The damn things can chew through concrete. I saw so on TV. How is that not scary?" Dr. Frost's lip twitches. He was growing increasingly annoyed by his patient's petulant manner that day. "Imagine this: You're sleeping and you hear this chipping noise. You're like, "eh, it's fine. I'll look tomorrow" and go back to sleep. You wake up, and there are like, fifty rats in there. They eat you alive, they were just waiting for you to wake up and see them; they're evil like that."  
"Rats aren't evil. They're animals. They can only follow their nature."  
"My point is, there's no way to be safe from them. You could build a bunker of concrete, and the little bastards'd just chew through it."  
"To be safe from them. What do you mean by that? Why did you phrase it like that?"  
"What do you mean what do I mean?"  
"To want to be safe from something is an expression of a feeling of vulnerability." Dr. Frost tilts his head to the side and knits his brow. "I recall you saying that your mother used to lock you in the basement of your home, where there were rats. Were you afraid of them before she locked you in there?"  
"Yeah. It's why she did it. She'd push me a little way down the stairs, slam the door behind me and lock it, and tell me that the rats were going to eat me." He shudders. "I still remember the sound of them squeaking around me. I think they were talking to each other; trying to decide if it would be a good idea to try to eat me or not. _Squeak squeak. It's the small one. Nice and tender. Nice to eat_. and another'd be all _Squeak squeak. No. What if he has gun? Humans have gun, sometimes. Not worth getting shot. Many shot before human can't shoot_. Then a third would say_ Squeak squeak. No. He is just boy-child in shorts. No gun. Defenseless_."  
"Why do the rats talk like that in your mind?"  
"Because they're animals, duh."  
"I don't think they were debating on whether or not to eat you, Once-ler."  
"You don't know."  
"I'm pretty sure rats aren't smart enough for that sort of thing." His eyes brighten. "Your mother told you that the rats would eat you?"  
"Yeah."  
"How long had she been telling you that?"  
"A long time. I can't remember how it started, but I remember her having one in a wire cage when I was little. She got it for me for a birthday present. I woke up to it sitting on my night-stand...chewing the bars. I...doctor, I pissed myself."  
"What happened after that?"  
"She heard me screaming and came up there. Normally, she'd yell at me for pissing myself, but she just laughed her ass off and took the rat downstairs, let it go in the basement, and said "Now it's down there with the others. A nice, smart store rat.", chuckled, and walked away."  
"She knew you were afraid of rats, and she did that anyway?"  
"Yeah. Have you not been paying attention? She's a heartless bitch who took pleasure in scaring the hell out of me and my brothers all through our child-hoods."  
"This won't be easy, but try to think back as far as you can. Think hard. There's got to be some spark, some origin of the fear. Fears are learned, there has to be a reason you are this afraid of them. It's not just a fear, this level. This is a phobia." He sits, silent, across from Dr. Frost for several minutes, then finally speaks up. His voice is weak and tinged with fear.  
"W-when dad started staying in the hospital, we were scared a lot. Especially at night. They tried to help me, but Brett and Chet were just five. Five-year-olds are not known for being rational. We'd stay in the same room a lot, and this annoyed mom for some unknown reason. I think she was afraid we'd start playing and being noisy, but I don't know." He swallows hard. "We lived in an old farm house. It made noises all night. For them, it was like "hear a noise: oh shit! It's the fucking boogeyman!" They were scared, and it made me scared. To me, they were practically adults. I was two years old, I didn't know any better. Of course, we could hear shit moving around in the walls. Mom told us it was rats, and it more than likely was. She said that they'd love to eat a boy like me."  
"So that's it. Honestly, I figured it would have something to do with her."  
"Brett and Chet, being a pair of five-year-olds, weren't sold on it being rats. It had to be a monster or something. Had to. Freddy fucking Krueger was holed up in there with Michael Meyers and Jason Vorhees to scare the hell out of us. They were playing poker." He smirks. "The guy from Hellraiser was gonna stop by later with a pizza." Sighing, he continues. "Well, anyway, we had built a fort out of mattresses, pillows, and blankets, certain that it would be impregnable. We weren't allowed to have food in our rooms, so it wasn't as cool as it could have been, but we did have fun in our fort. We were going to stay up all night to catch what was making that noise. Around midnight, mom opens the door and throws a rat right into our fort. She said "I told you little dumbasses that it's just rats. Go the fuck to sleep." and shut the door. It ran out, the rat did, but we stayed awake most of the rest of that night." He cocks his head to the side. "You think that might be where my fear of rats started?"  
"Yes, it probably was. That was a very cruel move on her part, and a little dangerous. It could have bitten one of you."  
"She didn't give a fuck about us. Ever. It wasn't just me she plotted to kill."  
"How do you know that?"  
"My Christmas present when I was thirteen-you know, the I was going to kill you when you were a baby talk. She started in on how if she killed me, she'd have to kill them, too. That they'd be witnesses. That they'd tell what really happened to me. She told me that she really started thinking about it when that Susan Smith woman drown all her kids in a lake after saying someone stole her car. She wondered if she could do that, too, and get away with it. She said she tried to figure out how she'd do it, regardless of how she was going to kill us. I would be easiest to get, being a toddler. I wouldn't be able to get away, even if I tried to run. I would be too small to fight back. However, Brett and Chet would be able to figure out what she'd done to me if they saw me, all limp and wet. They would be harder to catch, being older and all. There was also two of them, which was a whole other problem on its own. She couldn't take both of them at the same time; they'd over-power her, squirm away. She really didn't want to have to run them down."  
"She said all that to you?"  
"Yep. She said the only reason she abandoned her "mission" to kill us was because of dad's work. You can't hide jack-shit these days. DNA, even under your finger-nails. Paper-trails, her being the last person to see us alive and no one to corroborate her story about a car-jacking or home invasion or whatever bullshit cover she thought of. No way to get away with it." He looks down at his lap. "It was my fault."  
"What do you mean? How is it your fault?"  
"It was my fault she wanted to kill us. She said she never thought about it until I was born. After that, killing me was all she could think about. That she wanted to take me, while we were still in the hospital, and go to the roof and throw me off it. She said she didn't want me; she wanted a girl. She thought if she killed me, then she could "have another shot" and have a girl this time." Anger starts to fill his voice, it growing louder and louder. His body tenses up, and it seems he's resisting the urge to stand. "That it "wasn't fair" that Ubb got to have a daughter and she didn't. She said: "I already had two filthy, useless little boys. I didn't need or want a third"," His shoulders slump and his voice wavers. ""I didn't want you." I will never forget what she said to me. Never forget. Never forgive. Just waiting for it. Payback will be a bitch."  
"What do you plan to do?" He looks up, a sneer across his face.  
"Cut her off. You didn't want me, now I don't want you. Fuck right off." The sneer drops off his face. "What'd you think I was going to do? Kill her? Hell no. She's not worth going to prison over."  
"She thought that killing you meant that she would have a baby girl next time?"  
"It's what she said to me." Dr. Frost sits his pad of paper down.  
"At first, I thought her homicidal impulses towards you as a baby were just part of post-partum depression, but that seems more like delusional thinking to me. I think it may be possible that she had post-partum psychosis, instead. Much more rare, much more dangerous."  
"Oh, no shit?" He says, his voice full of sarcasm and his brow furrowed.  
"You don't have to be a smart-ass, Once-ler." Dr. Frost sighs. "I can't make anyone do anything, but I do think that your mother needs a psychiatric evaluation."  
"We'll see." He stands and leaves. "I'll be back next week, doc."


	14. Chapter 14

"Last time, you managed to talk your way out of something. You managed to distract me."  
"Distract you from what, Avery?" Once-ler lies down on the couch, an innocent tone to his voice.  
"You know what I'm talking about, Once-ler. Don't act like you don't." He groans and rests a gloved arm over his eyes.  
"The rat nightmare? Damn. I'd hope you'd forget." He blows, but doesn't sit up. "Fine. We'll talk about that."  
"Describe it to me again, if you don't mind. Don't leave out any details." At that, he sits up, placing his hands on the couch for stability.  
"Don't leave out any details? What?"  
"Any detail is important. The sleeping brain speaks in symbolism, but it's hard for the waking brain to-"  
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know about all that C. G. Jung dream bullshit from Ubb. You don't have to go on. Sheesh." He lies back down. "As I said, I'm always the age I really am in the dream, not a boy again or anything." His cheeks flush for a moment. "I don't have any clothes on."  
"You're nude?"  
"That's what that means, isn't it?" He says, his eyes narrowed. Calming back down, he continues. "I'm down on my knees, kind of. Like, I'm sitting, sort of, on my lower legs with my feet under me. There's a chain around my wrists. Big, thick chain. Shiny. Looks like it might be silver or something."  
"So you're naked and chained down by the wrists. What is around you? Do you recognize where you are?"  
"No. It's just dark. All around me in all directions. I don't even know how the hell I'm seeing where I am; it's like candle light. Flickers. The ground beneath me is dirt."  
"Wasn't the floor in the basement of your old house dirt?"  
"Yeah."  
"Interesting."  
"I can hear squeaking. It's not so loud and just sounds like maybe there are only a couple rats around me, at first. I start to struggle against the chains; I don't want them to fucking eat me, and they just get tighter and tighter. While I've been trying to get away, more and more rats have joined in until it's just a pure cacophony of rat-squeaks." He shudders. "The eyes, too."  
"Tell me about these eyes."  
"They cry every night, for you." Dr. Frost looks back at him, a bemused expression on his face.  
"Be serious, please." Once-ler sighs and continues.  
"There are thousands of them. Little red eyes glowing in the dark. All around me. I know it's the rats. It has to be. They are quiet when I notice this, then I start to try to get away again. My wrists are bleeding at this point, the chain's cut through my skin. I can hear the damn squeaking again. Then, they converge on me." He's pulled his long legs up to his thin body, his arms wrapped around them. "I can feel all of it. Every single bite in my flesh, I feel. I scream, but no one comes for me. They chew into my legs and ass first, of course." His cheeks flush again. "My junk, too. Fuck, that hurts every time. My skin, muscle, bones. I can hear my bones breaking and chipping against their little teeth. Others start in on my hands, chewing away at my fingers. They go easy." Gradually, his face grows more and more pale. "I-I don't know why I'm still alive, at this point. They've eaten the lower part of my body, and are getting into my organs while the others chew through my hands and wrists. That's the worst, there. I fall into them." His voice is strained. "They break through my ribs like they are a bunch of twigs. I choke on my own blood while they feast on my lungs, heart, liver, all that mess. Gnaw my spine. They save my face for last. There isn't as much blood as I thought there'd be, but I can see my blood on their fur. They break into my skull through the old fracture at the same time as they take my cheek-always the left one first. I can't scream any more. Kind of hard to when you're just a head that's being devoured. My eye...my tongue. It's like they take their sweet-ass time, leaving the right part of my face for last while they eat the rest of me in front of that eye...then they take it. I always wake up wringing with sweat and in a great deal of pain. It fades in a couple seconds, but I'm afraid to let my feet touch the floor until morning." He looks up. "I...I used to piss the bed when I'd have that dream as a boy."  
"How long have you been having this nightmare?" Avery asks, remembering his training. 'Don't react, Avery. Remember that. No matter what he tells you, don't react. Still, damn! I'd be afraid to sleep if I kept dreaming that.'  
"I don't know. I think I was around four or five. When I was at school, it was merely humiliating. At home...painful. She'd beat me for it. She'd have me get down on all fours and take a wet leather belt to my back until she was done."  
'This must be something that really bothers him-he's trying to distract me with memories of being abused.' Avery straightens his tie. "I'm sorry about that, Once-ler."  
"Nothing you could do about it, Dr. Frost. I was too scared to tell you what was happening to me."  
"Nudity in dreams usually represents vulnerability. The fact that you are bound down, with chains, no less, indicates feelings of being trapped. Rats are something that scares you-they also symbolize disease and pestilence, as they are vermin, and the act of being eaten alive is just that. You feel like you are being eaten alive. Have you ever sat and thought about what's going on with your company? Sat the money aside and thought about how you really feel?"  
"Yeah, but why have I been having it since I was a kid?"  
"The same reason, generally speaking. You were vulnerable to being abused, your mother had power over you. You felt trapped because you were afraid to tell anyone what was being done to you. The rats are for the same reason, and the feeling of being eaten alive represented you feeling like you'd never escape the abuse; like it'd only get worse until she killed you." Once-ler makes a fart noise with his mouth and crosses his arms.  
"Bullshit. I call bullshit, good sir." He shakes his head and throws up his hands. "Pop-psychology hokum."  
"I admit, that's a pretty topical analysis of the nightmare-I'd have to get my old books out to really dig into what your psyche is trying to tell you. But let me ask you this: Was there ever a time period wherein you stopped having this nightmare?"  
'_HORSE-SHIT! I stopped having them for a while after I left home and they didn't start back up until recently. I'll be damned if I tell him that, though._' He pouts. "What's it matter?"  
"Answer the question." Dr. Frost says, sternly. Once-ler sits across from Avery, scowling at the older man, who's expression does not change from a steely look of determination. His lip twitches. He shoots to his feet, his hands balled into fists.  
"Argh! Damnit! Fuck! Fine! Yes, I stopped having them for a while, happy?!"  
"When did they start back up again?"  
"When do you think, ass-hole?" Dr. Frost ignores that.  
"You don't have to call me an ass-hole. Please calm down." He sits back down on the couch, taking deep breaths and glaring at the man he'd known since he was a small child. "You know you can't keep anything from me, Once-ler."  
"I kept having the shit beat out of me from you."  
"And where'd that get you?" Still fuming, Once-ler responds:  
"Not too long after my company took off. That's when they came back. Smug ass-hole..."  
"Now, was that so hard? To admit that? Think about it, why are you really doing this? What do you really feel? Think on this, Once-ler. It's important. If you want to stop being eaten by rats every time you dream, you'll think about it."  
"Fine. Whatever. See you next week, doc." He stands and walks out of the door, still rather pissed.


	15. Chapter 15

"I grew up in a strange house-hold, Avery."  
"Oh? How so, Once-ler?"  
"Religion was all over the place. Ma believes in God, but thinks that she and the big guy don't have a good relationship-aren't on "speaking terms". Dad was Episcopal, but not hard into it. Mostly, he was because he was raised that way. Uncle Ubb is a flat-out Atheist. Grizelda is a fuckin' Buddhist. A shitty Buddhist, but a Buddhist. Brett's a semi-devout Baptist. Chet is Agnostic-lazy man's Atheism. Clementine is a Taoist. Marietta claims herself as a Pagan, now. Worships some sort of being-like a super-spirit, or something. I don't follow. Me? Well, that's my own business, isn't it? Don't have to answer that for anyone."  
"A lot of people come from mixed-faith homes, Once-ler. My dad was Muslim, and my mom was an Evangelical."  
"Yeah, but despite the lack of any cohesive familial religion and values, my brothers and I were really repressed."  
"How so?"  
"All boys eventually start to change. When we started being interested in girls, ma wasn't happy. She filled our heads with notions of all these dick-rotting diseases to try to make us keep it in our pants. Uncle Ubb tried to tell her it was perfectly normal for us to develop sexual curiosity; that we were at the "stage" wherein our sexual latency period had ended. He gave us "the talk" behind her back-Brett and Chet a couple years before me, of course. He told me that what I was feeling was natural; that it was normal when "thinking about girls sometimes makes my pants really tight and makes my wiener stick up and get hard". Told me that I was aroused. I told him it happened when I accidentally saw up a friend of mine's skirt at school. I told him I felt bad that I kept thinking about her panties and how I was "aroused" and really wanted her to touch me. I felt like it was bad of me because she was my friend, and I shouldn't have "dirty thoughts" about her. Even though he tried to give my brothers and I a healthy view of sex and sexuality, Ma was still there to make us feel ashamed of ourselves. She got upset when each us had our first kisses. When Brett kissed Phish the first time-rather, she kissed him-mom got pissed. "_What's wrong with you Brett? Ain't you got no more since than to give your first kiss to that little half-oriental half-arab girl?_" Got mad at me for Naomi-the friend I mentioned-kissing me-I'll talk about that, later. She didn't know about Chet. She thought his first kiss was with one of those Burkhart triplets-Susan, I think. I know she had a thing for him. Our farm used to raise horses-by the end, all we had was Melvin, our Donkey. Susan saw him working the field, topless. He really kissed Tammi, first. He went out with Tammi, but since mom has such a problem with black people, they had to keep their relationship secret. He just kissed Susan to save face. We, all three, were very sheltered in that respect." He blushes. "She shamed the three of us for something perfectly natural so damned much that I still have a little body-shame."  
"Oh? Go on."  
"Internet wasn't very big when we were kids-sure, there was internet at school, but we lived on a damned farm out in the county-not even Hybee proper. What I'm saying is we'd, all three, sneak and get...um..."magazines". We didn't, like, show 'em to one another or nothing, but mom found them. All three of them. She found Brett's first; his having all sorts of women in it-all the races. He put it in a dumb-as-hell hiding place: his dresser. Had a crazy-ass name: "_All the Whores of the Rainbow_". Found my _Playboy_ after that. Chet was slick, hid his the best. "_Ebony Goddesses_", I still remember it being called. Mom hit the roof. Hit the roof and went through that motherfucker, all the way into the ionosphere. She screamed at us and called us all filthy little perverts."  
"You do know that what the three of you were doing was perfectly healthy and perfectly normal, correct?"  
"Yeah. Well, I wish I could tell you that that's all she did to us in those regards. I don't know too much about what Brett and Chet went through, but when I was 13, I was home for winter holiday-same year she told me about wanting to murder me when I was a baby-I...I wasn't even "doing" anything, I just had one. Hell, at that age, the wind blows and a boy'll pop a boner. She grabbed me by my hair and dragged me down the hall to the first-floor bathroom...she...she threw me into the tub in there. It was one of those old claw-foot tubs. There was no heat in there, as I think I probably said before, and she dragged me down to the spigot by my ankle. Dr. Frost, she turned the cold water on me full-blast and left me in there...it was so damned cold. My lips had already turned when I got out of the bath to get out of those wet clothes and dried off."  
"I can't make anyone do anything, but I think your mother would benefit greatly from some sort of psychoanalysis."  
"Then my brothers and I went beyond just kissing girls. I don't know for certain exactly when, because that'd be weird, but I know that Brett and Chet ended up sleeping with their girlfriends."  
"What about you?" His cheeks flush.  
"Doctor Frost...I...I don't want anyone to know this about me, especially now, but I'm actually...I've only had sex once. Naomi and I were together before she left, and swore to wait for each other. I'm keeping my promise to her."  
"You have only had sex once? How? Teenage boys are not known for their restraint in that area, and now that you are a grown man and very successful..."  
"Mom. If she found out that I had had sex, I know she would beat me down. I'm this six-foot-six-tall man you see here, and I am afraid of being beaten. I have to be a good boy. If I do that, then I'm a dirty, useless I'd be a filthy little pervert. That she'd cut it off. She said she'd find out, no matter what, and she'd cut it off...but she did find out, and when she learned that I had given my virginity to Naomi, she said: "_You couldn't find nobody no better than the California Retard to fuck for your first time, Oncie? What the hell is the matter with you? Center on the basketball team, cute, tall-you got all sorts of girls who would line up to get on your pecker, and you stick it in Short Bus first?_" I was so ashamed for such a long time."  
"Your mother really seems to dislike Naomi."  
"She always refers to her as a "retard" in some way-"Short Bus", "Rain Man", "California Retard", "Forrest Gump". I don't know why she was hung up on the California thing, either. Short Bus is her favourite, though." He sighs. "I just don't understand why mom hates Naomi so much. I don't think it would matter if she had Autism or not, or was or wasn't from California; mom'd still hate her."  
"I know this may sound strange to you, Once-ler, but perhaps your mother's problem with Naomi stems from your feelings towards her. In her eyes, even if she doesn't see it herself, Naomi is the girl who took her little boy away, dirtied him up, and is a threat to the power she has over you. Perhaps she doesn't think Naomi is good enough for you. It is strange to me that she only seems to give you any praise when she's touting how bad Naomi is, though."  
"But mom doesn't care about me."  
"Even so, she may see you as a possession. In that case, she certainly sees Naomi as trying to steal you. You're hers in her eyes. He's not good enough of a son for me, but I'll be damned if I let her take him. Its like when you take a toy from a small child; one they no longer care for. They want the toy, then. She doesn't want you, but doesn't want Naomi to have you, either."  
"Well, Naomi has me, and it's just something she'll have to deal with."  
"Does she still say these things to you, Once-ler? You are a twenty-six year old man, and, as you said, are six-and-a-half feet tall." He hangs his head. He can't look Dr. Frost in the eye.  
"Yes...even though she doesn't need to."  
"Oh?"  
"I...she said that to me and hurt me how she did with the cold water so much that, even if I was the cheating sort, I...I get nervous around girls. I know it's pathetic. I'm rich, young, successful, attractive-but I don't think I could work up the nerve to ask a woman out." He looks up. "Want to know the worst part, Doctor?"  
"What would that be?"  
"She keeps giving me these mixed messages; tells me that she'll cut my dick off if I have sex, but calls me a fag because I'm not bringing women home." His voice trembles. "I...I can't even jerk off sometimes because of her. I can still get a hard-on no problem, sure, but I have a hard time touching myself."  
"Why? It is a perfectly natural thing, and you wouldn't be cheating on Naomi."  
"It's because my body is filthy, and I know it. It's dirty and wrong and something I should be ashamed of." He hangs his head, his fingers through his dark hair.  
"You know that's not true. No matter what she keeps telling you, Once-ler, it's normal and natural. I understand if you want to keep your promise, but to be this ashamed of your body is not natural; especially for a young man of your age and level of success." Dr. Frost sits his notepad down. "I have a question. Did your mother allow you to attend sex-ed in school?"  
"No. I don't understand why, but Brett and Chet got to, but I wasn't allowed." He looks up. "I...I don't even fully understand my own body. I know the basics, yeah, but I don't fully understand."  
"Aside from the _Playboy_ you had as a boy, have you viewed any pornographic material?"  
"No. I'm afraid...after she found that one, I got one more. She "caught me"." His breath hitches. "She didn't even let me pull my pants back up-just dragged me out into the hall and beat the fuck out of me with a belt. She called me a filthy little bastard. It was the first and only time my mother has ever called me a bastard. I was fifteen years old when this happened." Dr. Frost tilts his head to the side, his brows knit.  
"Once-ler, will you do something for me?"  
"What?"  
"I have a colleague who specializes in sex-related psychological issues. I would like you to see her." Once-ler's cheeks darken and his eyes widen.  
"Her? I-I don't think I can. I can't talk to a lady about my..."  
"It is up to you, but I feel that you would benefit from a few sessions with a sexual therapist. She can help you develop a healthy view of sex and sexuality. It is up to you to see her, but having this unhealthy of a view of sexuality and sex, and to the point of not even understanding your own body is abnormal. It would be very helpful for you to see Dr. Marshall about this." Once-ler shakes his head, his cheeks still flushed.  
"I...I can't...I can't..."


	16. Chapter 16

"You might remember me talking about how my mom used to neglect me all day when I was a baby in an earlier session, doctor. Well, I found out something just delightful earlier this week."  
"What did you find out, Once-ler?"  
"She tried to sell me. She tried to sell me on the black market. "Advertised" me as "Healthy, Caucasian male baby. July 12, 1990. Black hair. Blue eyes" and put contact info for some sort of handler or some shit she got a hold of to be a middle man. I was less than a month old-two weeks and three days old. Anyway, after about three days, she got a bite. She talked to a man on the phone, and arranged for them to meet up at the abandoned playground on the old end of the park in my home-town. It was two men. Two gay dudes. I guess that's why they couldn't adopt normal; folks were a lot more homophobic back in the early 90s than they are now. Their names were Tim Grady and John Thompkins. Mom was going to sell me for $10,000. Mom said she "didn't wanna sell me to no faggots, but queer money is as good a straight money." Dad was at work, so he didn't know shit about this. She let them look at me; make sure she wasn't bullshitting them on me being healthy; it turns out that ten-thousand dollars is pretty fucking cheap for a healthy, white, boy baby. She showed them a copy of my birth certificate-just redacted in places. She took off mine and her last name, and completely took dad's name out, but left everything else: 7:25 pm, 21.7 in, 5lbs, 7oz, full-term, 9 APGAR score. Other documents, photo-copies. My blood-type, the fact that I wasn't snipped, known allergies-pollen can suck my ass. Fuck trees. Ragweed, too. It can go straight to hell. Turns me into a sneezey, snotty, squinched-eyed mess." He finds his train of thought, again. "Anyway, they kept me for about 8 hours to "test-drive" me. Took care of me; mom gave them my diaper bag. They held on to me, took care of me, treated me like their own baby; but they started to feel like something wasn't right, there-something was "fishy". Why had she redacted every single detail regarding my father? Why did she give such a specific time for me to be back by? They realized that my dad likely had no knowledge that she was selling me, and didn't want to take another man's baby away from him. They gave me back to her and told her that they couldn't take me. She took it pretty hard-wanted them 10 G's, apparently. Such a bitch move how mom planned to explain why I was gone to dad. She planned to beat the shit out of herself, break one of the windows in her car, use a knife to cut the straps on my car-seat, tear her own shirt a little, and smear some blood around-make it look like I had been taken by force. She had some of my clothes she'd been soaking in lamb's blood-stupid as fuck; simple test would determine that that's not even human blood-gonna set it up to look like the person who "stole" me murdered me and just left behind bloody, dirty, torn-up baby-clothes. Mutilated my little body so badly that there wasn't anything solid left of me. You know what else, Avery?"  
"What else?"  
"I found 'em. Tim and John. Those guys. Took off all this ol' bullshit here so they maybe wouldn't recognize me; I wanted to see if they really remembered me, or just pretended to because of all the money. Put on my old shirt, vest, and stripey pants, slapped that fedora back on my head, and went down to Hopewood, where they're living."  
"Did you talk to them? Did they remember you?"  
"Yup. Apparently, "Tim" answered the door. I asked them if they remembered, back in 1990, trying to buy an infant boy from a blond woman named Isabella. At first, he tried to act like he didn't know what I was talking about, since that is some illegal shit, right there. I told them that I'm that little boy. I'll never forget what Tim said after that. His eyes got all big and he called something out: "John! Get in here! You're not gonna believe it, but it's Justin! He's here, and all grown up!" They were going to name me "Justin". They both gave me a hug and invited me in. They told me all that-all about how they took care of me that day; how they fed me, changed me, played with me, cuddled me, how they rocked me and held me while I slept. They said that it was the closest they ever got to having a baby. They never got to adopt a child. I felt bad for them; it seems like they would have been great parents to any child lucky enough to get them. Doesn't matter for dick that they're a couple gay dudes-what matters is that the kid is loved. They wouldn't have beat me. They wouldn't have let me starve or stay filthy...they would never have hurt me, or made me feel like less of a person." He leans back. "I wonder what my life would have been like if they kept me, Avery? I'd be Justin Grady-Thompkins instead of Once-ler Struthers. I'd be a completely different person, but I don't know if that would be such a bad thing."  
"That is true, you would not be the person you are right now, at all. Different circumstances, different town, different type of upbringing. True, you likely would have been teased for "_having two daddies_", but still."


	17. Chapter 17

"You remember me telling you that I was actually kind of sort of popular at school?"  
"Yes."  
"Well, it's hard to not be when you start "developing" and hit your growth spurt early, and end up Center on the school's award-winning basketball team. Plus, I am a charming motherfucker, ain't I?"  
"Certainly."  
"Well, you also remember me talking about some ass-bags that didn't like me for stupid-assed, petty reasons; or rather, a petty, ass-headed reason. I've never been able to understand just exactly why any of them gave even one sixteenth of a fuck about it, but, apparently, me being born out of wed-lock was a big deal to those snobby pricks. How the hell does how I was born effect them at all?"  
"Some people are just like that, Once-ler."  
"And like I even had control over that shit. What could I do, pop up as a spirit or a sperm or something and be like: "Hey, if it's not too much trouble, would you mind getting married before you conceive me?" Pssht." He settles back, taking a drink of some sort of cherry-flavored beverage. "Well, they got into the habit of vandalizing my stuff with the word "bastard". Started doing that when I was in first grade. It was mostly kids a few years ahead of me, but some in my year were like that, too. Carved it into my desks-seating was set. Not assigned, but set. Your ass sat where you sat on the first day of class. Not just in Professor Alvarez's class, but in all the other classes I had, too. Sure, Professor Alvarez and Professor Ogawa would do something about it when I'd show it to them, but it'd always be back before the week was out. Eventually, I just stopped giving a damn and left it. Used a pencil board to keep the word "bastard" from ending up backwards on my papers. "Dratsab", I guess. That wasn't enough for them, eventually, so they started tagging my lockers with it-the one in the locker-room, and the one in the hall for my books-so I wouldn't have to trek up three flights of stairs to my dorm room after each class to retrieve my books, or carry all day's worth of books with me all day. Then, in third grade, they painted it all over the door to my dorm room. Black paint, slopped all on the door and the surrounding wall, in all caps, "BASTARD". They started carving other shit into my desks: "go home", "die", "scum", "garbage", "trash", "fatherless dog". Of course, our old friend "bastard" was on there, too. I could deal with all that, but what they carved, deep into the desk and chair...that bothered me. A lot. "your dad's dead". It took me about a week to notice it, but on the outside edge of the desk, it said: "because you weren't good enough". I know that's not true; I know my dad died of cancer, but it still stung. The worst shit came in fifth grade, though. That's what made the school have to make an official statement about that noise so it would stop. A group of boys from my year got me down in the locker room...while I was showering, because of course it happened when I was showering. They beat the hell out of me. Sucker-punched me in the jaw, kicked me a few times once I went down-floor was slippery and that sucker-punch made me lose my footing. They dragged me out of the water by my hair, dried me off, and then the sharpie markers came out. They held me down and wrote their favourite word all over my face and body. Like tattoos. All on my chest, belly, back, legs, arms, hands, feet, neck, face, ass...my dick and nut-sack...God, that was the worst-the feeling of the felt-tip maker down there. It stung a little, too. Why'd it sting? I couldn't wash it off-I scrubbed my skin red, but the words were still there-those big sharpies, the thick ones. I had that word all over my body, and I was a little dizzy from the fumes. It took two damn months for it to all wash off me. The kids that did it were expelled, the Headmaster released a statement regarding a "zero tolerance of any sort of bullying under penalty of suspension", but everyone knew what it was about. In the two months it took for the profanity to wash off me, I had to keep it covered as much as possible. They had me wear gloves to cover my hands, a surgical mask for my nose and mouth. My hair hid a lot of it on my forehead, and they had me wear a scarf to cover it on my neck." He shudders and takes a rather large swig from his drink. "Mind if I talk about something less shitty, doc?"  
"Go ahead."  
"Well, I've talked about some of my friend Enrique. Phil, I guess he's up next. He fucking hated me when he first met me-he was one of those "bastard" pricks. He got to know me and decided that I was a hell of a guy, and I forgave him for being a bag of dicks. Samir was a friend of mine, but he wasn't very interesting, really. He played the flute, had a weird hair-style, and was super fucking friendly; like, to an unreal level. Melanie Kobayashi. Man, Melanie fucking Kobayashi. She was very loud-mouthed and disruptive. I mean, everyone around her got the worst marks in class-a cone of ignorance, like on The Simpsons. She had to have ADHD-no one bounces off the walls like that unless they've got ADHD or they're on cocaine. You'd try to be studying, and she'd make fart noises with her mouth. Not often, every couple of seconds-just enough to make it impossible to learn anything. She spent a lot of time in the hall. She'd also blurt out facts that had nothing to do with anything. Shit like, who invented the vacuum cleaner, the name of the dog the Russians shot into space, Pigs are smarter than human babies. There are 10,000 species of spider on Australia. All sorts of crap like that, out of no where. Then, she'd get stuck on a word, like with the Australia bit up there, she'd start saying "spider" all sorts of ways. "Spidder", "Spydar"-like that. I think she probably had Tourette syndrome or something like that."  
"That's what it sounds like to me."  
"Then, there was Laura Bromden. Native American girl. She was in trouble constantly, and not for the things Melanie was-she was a delinquent. Steal shit, burn shit, sneak off and smoke behind the gym, tag shit. She was the only other one of us that liked rap, Naomi being the other one. She had the filthiest mouth I've ever heard on a girl, too. I mean, I'm not deaf or oblivious; I know I cuss too much sometimes, but she did at least once per statement. Finally, there's Naomi. Doctor...I have always had feelings for Naomi. I never worked up the courage to tell her, really-I mean she kissed me in tenth grade, but that was it. She had come from California and had short, orange-red hair. She liked to skate-board and has Autism. She had a fantastic memory for military history. Name a war, and she could tell you all about it; the years it spanned, the death-count on either side, the parties in the war, how the war ended-all that shit. She had a very hard time getting along with other people, but I liked her. I thought it was cool that she could remember all that stuff."  
"I have a feeling it was hard for her to make friends."  
"It was. That was all my American friends-the rest came from different countries. There was Gaston LaRouche and Mikal Gorski-I met them the same day. Mom wanted to be the biggest shit-head imaginable that year, and not let me come home for Christmas Holiday, because she not only didn't give enough of a fuck to come get me, but she didn't want to have to buy me any gifts, either. She needs her ass kicked. Their folks couldn't afford a plane ticket for them to get back home, so they had to spend Christmas at school, too. Gaston accidentally insulted me when I met him "You live in the town below? Why does no one come for you? Does your famliy not care, uh?" Mikal, this Russian kid who was so skinny he made me look like Fat Bastard from Austin Powers, apologized for him; said Gaston's English was shit. There was Blaise Cooper, too-British girl who was a little bit of an ass-clown, but I guess there was probably a culture barrier on the whole humor thing. Finally, there was Kawaji, who was even more polite than Samir."  
"How often did you have to stay at school because your mother wouldn't come to get you? It seems like extreme laziness on her part."  
"Well, she was lazy. Even after Ubb, Grizelda, Clementine, and Marietta moved in, she still didn't do anything. True, she wasn't a drunk asshole all the time, but she was still lazier than dogshit. She wouldn't cook, clean, or do anything except watch TV and order shit either off Home Shopping or out of catalogues, only to sell it when she got bored of it. We had seventeen toilet-paper holders-you know, the decorative wooden kind-in two bathrooms. She'd get on the phone to one of her friends and prattle on for a while-especially Mrs. Bailey on the only other farm in town. Sleep late into the afternoon and spend all night out dicking around. She wouldn't drink, because she'd never hear the end of it, but she'd run the streets all night."  
"I'm sorry that you had to go through that as a boy."

"Eh, it's okay. You know what, Doctor? I'm feelin' a lot better since I've been talking to you. My quarter is about to end-those trees aren't gonna axe themselves-I'm going to be busy. How about I come back when this quarter is done?"

"That would work with me. You seem to have made some progress."

"Good. See you then!" Once-ler says as he leaves the room, waving. Little does he know this will be his last visit and his company's last day...


	18. Mother

With a cross, already defensive look on her face, Once-ler's mother strides into Dr. Frost's office, carrying a tall glass of iced tea. She sits across from him, her brow narrowed. Here she was; the monster who loomed so largely in his main patient's life. The cause of his pain and suffering. The reason he was such a broken man. Avery tries to hide his disgust and hatred towards this woman; to put away his already established feelings of anger towards her for beating her child, and begins the session.  
"Go on, prick. I know you've heard all about me from Oncie. What's he do, sit in here and bitch about me for an hour?"  
'_Well, there's where his tendency to launch into insults when he feels threatened comes from..._' He straightens his tie. "Now, Miss Struthers, I'm not here to pre-judge you. I am impartial, and I'm sure your side of the story holds just as much validity as his."  
"You're damn right it does. He doesn't tell you how shitty of a son he was. A disappointment the second he came out of me. You see, James knew the sex before I did, but refused to tell me. Isn't that bullshit? I think it's bullshit."  
"You did have the right to know the sex of your child if your, eh, boyfriend did." There is a slight upward infection at the word "boyfriend", as if Avery is not sure if that is the right word to use.  
"Damn straight. They didn't tell me I had twins with Brett and Chet, either. Bull-fucking-shit."  
'_Aaand there's where his mouth comes from, too_.'  
"When they said "babies", I thought, "What the fuck did you just say, you Chink bitch? Babies?" Ignoring the racial ephithet, Dr. Frost responds:  
"What do you mean?"  
"We have to work quickly if we're going to save the babies. That's exactly what she said. James knew I had twins. Didn't tell me. Gee-golly-motherfucking-gosh, don't you think I should know that, James? Yankee asshole. They cut me open and took 'em out, near dead. 'Bout killed me in the process. Trained professionals, my ass."  
"A C-section is always a risky thing, even more-so in 1987."  
"If I knew he was going to be a boy, I would have aborted him." Stunned, Dr. Frost replies:  
"What?"  
"You heard me. That's why James didn't tell me. He knew I would abort him the second I found out he was going to be a boy. I wanted a girl, and he knew that. What was the big deal? It's my body. I think I should have a choice about the baby I'm carrying. I already had two boys. Isn't that enough?"  
"Don't you think it's a little petty to have an abortion just because the fetus isn't the sex you desired?"  
"No." They sit in silence for a few long, stifiling minutes.  
"Miss Struthers, do you still feel that way?"  
"What's it matter?"  
"If you could go back 26-27 years and abort Once-ler, would you do it? That's what I'm asking. Knowing the man he grows into, would you still choose to abort him? Don't think about the money for a couple seconds; think about him, your son." She doesn't say anything, only gnaws her lower lip, thinking. "It's a simple question, Isabella. Would you have aborted your son if you had had the chance?"  
"I don't-"  
"You seemed awful damned sure a second ago; what's wrong? Actually think about it?" Avery knew he was breaking training doing this, but he couldn't control himself. "The baby you held in your arms and watched grow into a man; you're honestly having to think about if you would abort him-erase all of that-if you could?"  
"No! No, okay! I wouldn't have fucking killed him!" She shouts, then sits back down. "I can't kill him...he's still my son." Avery knits his brow.  
"Talk to me, Isabella. Get whatever it is you need to get off your chest off your chest."  
"He...he wasn't always a disappointment to me. He was an adorable baby. I can't tell you how many compliments I got on him." She smiles. "What a beautiful little boy you have there. How old is he? All I heard when I'd take him out. He was a sweet child, too. Bright, curious, creative, kind...why did I beat him, doctor?"  
"Abuse begets abuse. Your father was abusive."  
"Never me, though. He never raised a hand to me, only to Ubb."  
"Seeing your older brother beaten down was still traumatic. The two of you handled that trauma very differently. He sought to understand why your father beat him, while you internalized the problem until you became the monster he was." At that, she takes offense. Standing abruptly, she jabs her finger at the ground to punctuate her words.  
"I was never as cruel as him! Don't even compare me to him! After dad'd get done with him, all Ubb could do was lay there in a pool of his own blood, his bones broke and bruises forming all over his body. Mom had to set his bones. A lot. We were too afraid to take him to the hospital, so mom would treat his wounds the best she could. That's why his body is covered in horrible-ass looking scars; mom did the best she could. She curved a needle with a pair of pliers, steralized it with a candle, and used regular sewing thread on him." Her tone drops, her voice quiet. "She would have him hold this rag in his mouth to keep from screaming too loud or biting through his own tongue...I'd have to help her a lot; try to hold whatever part of him she was sewing up still. It had to be agonizing for him. He passed out more than a couple times, I remember."  
"Go on."  
"I remember the seizures and the times he went into shock. You know, mom was a nurse? It's how she was able steal what few supplies she could, and knew how to patch him up."  
"So, your mother was a nurse. What did your father do for a living?"  
"Tended the farm, but not much-had hands for that. He worked in town, selling insurance. He was practically the devil-sells life insurance and beats his son. That was a joke, Dr. Frost. But he was a son of a bitch." Her demeanor changes. "I remember the first time I saw him go into shock. It scared the hell out of me. His arm...it was broken so badly; bones sticking out through his skin. It all happened quick. Dad threw him down the stairs. Mom put his bone back in him, splinted the arm, and got him out of shock. I didn't realize how close he came to death that day."  
"And yet, you put your sons through the same thing."  
"I never broke a bone in their bodies."  
"A wet belt, though? They were just boys. Discipline is one thing, but that is abuse."  
"I know! I know, okay! I can't do anything about that now, now can I?"  
"How did you not stop? After the first time you heard them scream in pain, the first time you drew back blood, the first time they collapsed because they couldn't handle it anymore? Didn't you ever feel any sort of remorse?"  
"Of course I did. I don't know what Oncie sits in here and tells you, but I wasn't this tyrant he makes me out to be. Sure, I beat him. I know it was wrong. I know he has scars on his back because of me...but each time the anger faded and I saw him lying on the floor, crying, I felt guilty. I saw the blood, and it took me right back to Ubb lying there, in that same fucking floor, no less. I didn't know what to do, then. I stood there with the wet belt in my hands...water and my son's blood, and saw him lying there." Her breath hitches. "I know I hit Brett and Chet, too...but Oncie...God...I hit him more often and a lot harder. They don't have scars on their bodies, but he does." She looks up, tears in her eyes. "When I saw what I'd done to him the first time, it made me even more angry-but at myself. I hit him again. I don't know why, doctor. I kept hitting him, hearing him scream in pain until he was just quiet, because I was mad at myself for beating my child, just like my father...I had become him. He was barely three years old. Why did I beat him if I was angry at myself?"  
"Perhaps, on a subconscious level, you were mad at him for making you feel that way. You rationalized it away as: "I had to beat him. It's not my fault. I'm not my father. If he had been a better son..."."  
"...Then I wouldn't have to hit him. God...Oncie, I am so sorry for what I've done to you..." She looks up. "How do I make this better?"  
"There's no quick way to make up for 26 years of abuse. He is terrified of you. He masks it behind hate, but he's afraid of you, still. He remembers the degradation of removing his shirt and getting down on all fours, the pain of the belt against his back, of his skin tearing open, and he doesn't want to feel it ever again. It's left an impression on him that won't fade any time soon. It looms very largely in his psyche, even now."  
"I don't know what's wrong with me, doctor. I've always been that way towards him. Specifically him."  
"Tell me a bit about your other sons, Brett and Chet."  
"After they were cut out of me, they had to be put directly into neo-natal ICU. They were in there for such a long time, machines keeping them breathing and keeping their hearts beating. I couldn't touch them, I couldn't hold them. I could just put my hand on the plastic box and look at them. Their skin was a weird colour. Oncie was pink, but they weren't. Pale, and blue at parts. They looked like they were already dead...at first, when Dr. Huang had them rushed out of there-hadn't even told me they were both boys, yet, that's what I thought: they were dead. I'd given birth to two corpses. I don't know if you can even understand, doctor; you're a man...the notion of giving birth to something dead. It's perverse. Backwards. The thought of carrying something dead inside of you, too. Fuck. I'd been there when Grizelda had their two still-borns. I was afraid that whatever was wrong with Ubb that he kept making dead babies was wrong with me, too. When we finally were able to take them out of there and bring them home, the moment had passed."  
"What moment would that be?"  
"When you hold your new-born child for the first time. Don't get me wrong, it felt wonderful to finally be able to hold them, but it just wasn't the same. Naming them was hard; I was afraid they were going to die-that any second, the doctor'd tell me they died. We had to have something to put on the monument. Twins, both boys, Brett and Chet. Why the fuck not? It worked."  
"Tell me about when Once-ler was born."  
"Mother of all fucks, when he was born. He had to be born in the middle of the damn day, didn't he? Middle of the day in the July heat."  
"He couldn't control when he was born."  
"I know that, it still just pissed me off. He was born naturally. That was hell. Hurt so much, and by the time I got there, it was too late for the drugs. Hours of labor, birth. It all sucked so much ass."  
"I imagine so, but you had to know that that was what was going to happen. It's not exactly a secret."  
"I couldn't even smoke a damn cigarette in there, for fuck's sake."  
"You smoked during his pregnancy?"  
"Not much, just about five a day." Dr. Frost chokes back his desire to reprimand her for such irresponsible behavior. "He's no worse off for it."  
'_He's no worse off for it? What in the hell?! Five is a damn quarter of a pack. What else did she do? Knock back shots of whiskey, too? I want to punch her in her head._'  
"He was a lot different, doctor." Avery is snapped out of his thoughts. "I don't know why, but when he was born, I refused him when he was handed to me. I pushed him back like a bowl of soup I didn't want. I didn't want to hold him, I didn't want to see him. James took him, instead." She scoffs. "I still remember him, sitting over there in that chair, looking down at him like a dumbass. He was talking to me, but I don't really remember what he said. Something along the lines of "look how beautiful he is, Isabella. Big blue eyes and a bit of black hair already." probably. All the fucks I gave, it's a wonder you could walk in there."  
"Why do you think you felt that way towards your newborn son?"  
"I don't know. I just didn't want anything to do with him the second it was over. "It's a boy!" Well, fuck. Better luck next time, only I didn't get a next time."  
"I know you wanted a girl, but you still shouldn't have refused him like that."  
"Whatever."  
"Did you become more cold and, I'm sorry, but cruel to him after you realized there wouldn't be a next time? After James got sick?" She cocks her head to the side, turning the thought over in her mind.  
"Yeah...yes I did. It didn't help that Ubb had just had another daughter, either. Once-ler was three the first time I beat him. I mean, really beat him. I'd hit him a couple times; got caught when he was just five weeks old."  
"Why did you hit a five week old baby?"  
"He was crying. I don't know why I did it, but I hit him. I hit him hard across his back. Left a big, dark bruise. I should have known James would see it; he always bathed him. He went apeshit when he saw it."  
"Tell me about it. What happened when James saw what you had done to Once-ler?"  
"He came back in there with him wrapped in a towel. I remember him telling Brett and Chet to go to their room, that he needed to talk to me. He pulled the towel back, to show me his back-side and that big-ass bruise and asked me what the fuck it was. I told him that it looked like a bruise to me."  
"What did he say after that, Isabella?"  
"I can see that. How the fuck did it happen? I told him it was an accident." she smirks. "Wasn't no damn accident. I meant to hit him; just maybe not that hard. I told him that I was changing him and he fell off the changing table. James didn't buy that for a second. He covered him back up and held him closer to his chest, rocking him back and forth. I think he was starting to get fussy. He told me that he knew that was bullshit; that a bruise like that wouldn't form from that-that he works for the motherfucking FBI. He's seen more than his fair share of bruise patterns from a variety of actions. I told him "So fucking what?"."  
"I imagine James was very upset."  
"Oh, no shit?"  
'_And his smart-ass mouth..._'  
"He told me that that sort of bruise forms from being hit. He said to cut the shit and tell him why on Earth I'd hit a five-week-old baby."  
"What did you tell him?"  
"I said, and it's kind of true, kind of, that he was crying and I couldn't get him to stop. He just wouldn't shut the fuck up. I decided to shut him up, myself. I laid him on his belly and struck him against his back. He screamed-that shrill cry babies do when they're in pain. I hit him again...a couple more times. He was quiet, then, just whimpering and murmuring. I didn't punch him or anything, I hit him with my open hand."  
"Still, he was a baby."  
"I know, okay!? I don't know why I did it. I just did. I didn't know he'd bruise up like that. James told me the whole "don't hit a baby" thing, talked about how he isn't our first child, how I should know better than to hit him...he said: "Were you trying to kill him?! He'll be real fucking quiet when he's dead." He called Brett and Chet in there, after that."  
"Why did he call them in there?"  
"He told them to take off their shirts. They were just three, so he helped them a little-had to keep Once-ler in the other arm. He saw bruises on them, too. They were dumb-asses. I had to grab them and jerk them around to get them to do what I needed them to do. After he saw that, James took them up to Boston to stay with his parents for a little while-a few months. He brought them back after that."  
"Did you hit him after that? I mean, before the incident when he was three?"  
"Nah."  
"Why do you think that is? That you started hitting him again, at just three years old-with a wet leather belt, no less?"  
"James had only been in the hospital for four months at that point. Ubb had had Clementine two months before-in May. He had just turned three. I remember him tugging at my skirt. He asked me for something to eat. I don't know what happened; something in me just snapped. I looked down at him and I thought: "You little motherfucker. I'm stuck with you, aren't I? I'll never get another chance-James is going to die, and I'll never get my little girl; just you" I grabbed him by the arm and dragged him into the kitchen. It must've hurt, because he cried out. I told him to shut up or I'd make it worse. He started fucking crying at that point."  
"He was a three year old child. He didn't understand what you were doing to him. He probably didn't even have the slightest inkling of what you were going to do to him. All he knew is that he asked you for something to eat, and you grabbed him by the arm and dragged him into the kitchen. Think about how he felt. Be that small child. He must have felt like he had done something horrible by asking you for food." She glares at him.  
"You don't know, so shut your mouth. I threw him to the floor and took my belt loose. He tried to get up, and I told him to stay right the fuck where I'd put him. I got it wet in the sink, went over to him, tore his little blue shirt off him and pushed him down onto all fours. He didn't have the chance to try to stand before I brought that belt down on his back. He screamed like hell. I kept hitting him. Over and over again, until the belt was more wet with his blood than water. He laid still and quiet after about twenty licks. I can't believe he stood that many at that little. When I saw him lying there, I came back down. I saw what I had done to him, could hear him crying very softly."  
"What did you do after that?" Avery asks, not sure if he even wants to know.  
"I helped him back up." She says, crossing her legs and taking a drink, a slightly smug tone to her voice. "Didn't see that coming, did you, ass-hole?"  
"Miss Struthers-"  
"I helped him back to his feet, wiped his eyes and nose, and made him some lunch. I made him a grilled cheese and some soup. I always did that after I hit him. I don't know what he's telling you, like I said, but I'm not the monster he makes me out to be."  
"Can't you see how confusing that must've been for him? You beat him, then show him affection. That's very mixed messages. He said that you always called him a failure, too. Not as bad as beating him bloody, yes, but still cruel of you."  
"So what if I did? He's my son. I can say whatever the fuck I want to him." She sits back, a faint smile on her lips. "I got my daughter, though."  
"I know. He's told me about the time you cross-dressed him as a small boy."  
"There was more than that." She sounded satisfied, almost. "Do you know why Oncie is more delicate than his brothers? I did that to him. Sure, he's still tall as fuck-all, but he's thin, bony. Living in fear made him more delicate, more afraid. I made him take dance, gymnastics, all that. He hated that shit. He used to sneak out the back, sometimes." she laughs. "I'd beat a knot on his head when I found him. I made him be the girl I wanted. Weak. Soft. Delicate. He fucking knits. I didn't make him do that, either. He took that up on his own. It's a wonder he's not gay after all I did to him, but he's straight as an arrow. I know that for a fact. Caught the little pervert myself."  
"What do you mean?"  
"Caught him beating off to a Playboy. A few times. Always did the same thing to him: soak him in cold water like a dog." She sneers. "My little bitch dog." Avery had had enough of this woman, but one more question gnawed at him.  
"I have to ask: why'd you name him The Once-ler?" She shrugs.  
"I don't even know. James was still on about it: "What are we going to name him, Isabella?' I don't know where it even came from. I pulled it out of my ass, and James didn't shoot it down, so that's his name. It seems to have done him some good; I mean do you think he would have had such an impact being named Sean, or Chris? No. The Once-ler, you remember an asshole named that."


End file.
